Yoon Sun-jung (윤선중), a professor at Dongguk University, said Korea’s exchange-traded derivatives market faces structural limits and needs regulatory change, citing a sharp drop in trading after 2011 measures raised contract size, margin requirements and mandatory education for retail investors. He said trading shifted to overseas high-risk products and crypto markets. Yoon urged a shift from pre-emptive regulation to tighter monitoring and tougher penalties, easier listings for standardised products and stronger self-regulatory oversight.

The KOSPI sidecar mechanism has been triggered 10 times in less than two months since last month, the Korea Exchange said. There were four buy-side and six sell-side activations between Feb. 2 and March 23. The KOSDAQ market saw six triggers this year. The exchange said the highest annual total since 2002 was 26 in 2008, with this year the next highest so far.