Earnings made by the National Pension Service through its investments in local stocks have amounted to 13 trillion won ($11.5 billion) this year, with the main bourse Kospi recently hitting highs above the 2,300 level, industry data showed Friday.

The appraised value of local stocks held by the nation‘s largest institutional investor rose 13.5 percent from 93.6 trillion won at the end of last year to 106.2 trillion won as of Wednesday, according to financial data tracker FnGuide.

The value of stock prices of the 278 firms which the NPS owns at least 5 percent shares increased by 8.77 percent on average during the same period.

When only considering stocks of the 185 firms that created positive earnings, the average rate of earnings growth surged up to 16.29 percent. Among the stocks, 22 firms showed an appraised value of over 100 billion won. An additional 96 showed values over 10 billion won.

The greatest profits came from the 9.72 percent of shares of Samsung Electronics, the stock of which rose from 1.8 million won to 2.3 million won, a 26.5 percent increase, in the last four months. As a result, it recorded 6.1 trillion won in earnings on its own, with its appraised value rising from 22.9 trillion won to 29 trillion won.

Earnings from Samsung Electronics are already close to last year’s total earnings of 6.9 trillion won, breaking a trend of continuous losses it had cost the NPS from 2013 to 2015.

The stock price of SK hynix has also shown a noticeable increase of 24.38 percent, creating 812.7 billion won in earnings.

Other stocks such as KB Financial, LG Electronics, Hana Financial, NCSoft, Hyundai Heavy, SK Innovation and Samsung Electro-Mechanics have also contributed to the high earnings rate.

On the other hand, the stock price of the 91 stocks that have recorded losses fell by 6.34 percent on average.

The largest loss came from Hyundai Mobis, whose stock price fell by 7.1 percent, leading to a loss of 162.3 billion won.

Kia Motors, Lotte Capital, Korea Zinc, LG Display and Kepco recorded negative earnings rates as well. 

By Yim Ji-min (jiminy@heraldcorp.com)