Suwon in Gyeonggi Province has the highest number of male retail traders in their 40s, outpacing Gangnam, a posh residential district in Seoul, data showed Thursday. The city having the largest number of male traders perhaps has something to do with South Korean tech giant Samsung, which is headquartered in the city, observers say.

According to the state-run Korea Securities Depository, a total of 34,463 male day traders in their 40s lived in Suwon as of the end of 2020, while southern Seoul’s Gangnam had 34,187. Male individual investors in their 40s are widely believed to be the most active group among amateur traders.

Since the agency started to collect related data in 2016, Gangnam has had this highest number of male day traders in their 40s.

In 2018, Suwon ranked fourth with 24,790 traders, while Gangnam boasted more than 30,000, securing the top spot. In 2019, however, Suwon narrowed the gap with the number rising sharply to 26,126, slightly lower than the 30,041 traders in Gangnam.

The population of males aged 40-49 in Suwon, on the other hand, has dropped from 103,709 in 2019 to 102,242 last year.

“The increasing number of retail investors in the age group is mainly because the city is home to electronics giant Samsung Electronics, and males in the particular age segment are probably middle-level managers, meaning they have enough money to invest in stocks,” an analyst said.

Males in different age groups in the city also participated in the stock market quite actively. The number of male investors in their 30s came in at 30,891 while the figure for those in their 50s stood at 29,998. Women in their 40s were also a group of avid investors with the number reaching 28,008.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)