Tick Sizes: The Higher the Price, the Bigger the Tick
The minimum price step for Korean stocks (hoga unit) steps up with the price, from ₩1 to ₩1,000; the trading unit is 1 share, with no lot requirement.
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Text version · Korea Stock Rules, lesson 4: “Tick Sizes: The Higher the Price, the Bigger the Tick”
The minimum price step for Korean stocks (hoga unit) steps up with the price, from ₩1 to ₩1,000; the trading unit is 1 share, with no lot requirement.
The higher the price, the bigger the tick
Korean tick sizes (hoga units) step up with the price: ₩1 below ₩2,000, ₩5 for ₩2,000–5,000, ₩10 for ₩5,000–20,000 … ₩1,000 at ₩500,000 and above. Since 2023 the KOSPI and KOSDAQ use the same table.
Different on each side of the boundary
At ₩1,999, one tick up is ₩2,000; at ₩2,000, the next tick is ₩2,005. Likewise, one tick above ₩49,950 is ₩50,000, and the tick after that is ₩50,100.
Buy from 1 share
Korean stocks have no board lot restriction, so you can buy as little as 1 share; even very expensive stocks can be bought one share at a time to fit your budget.
Key takeaways
- Since 2023 KOSPI and KOSDAQ use the same tick table: ₩1 below ₩2,000, up to ₩1,000 in the top band of ₩500,000 and above.
- When a price sits right on a band boundary, the tick up and the tick down can differ, for example ₩2,005 above ₩2,000 but ₩1,999 below.
- Within the same band, the lower the price, the bigger one tick is as a share of the price, so the bid-ask spread is relatively more expensive.
- You can buy as little as 1 Korean share; there's no lot requirement.
Try it yourself
You can do these exercises in this lesson's interactive simulation:
- Drag the share price to about ₩3,000: how big is each tick? What percentage of the price is one tick?
- Drag to around ₩1,999: is one tick up the same size as one tick down?
- Compare ₩5,100 and ₩19,900: both have ₩10 ticks, so which one's tick is a bigger share of the price?
- Drag above ₩500,000: how big does each tick become?
Quiz and explanations
- 1. What's the tick size for a ₩3,000 stock?
- Answer: ₩5.The ₩2,000–5,000 band has a tick size of ₩5.
- 2. A stock at ₩1,999 rises two ticks in a row. What are the prices?
- Answer: ₩2,000 → ₩2,005.Below ₩2,000 each tick is ₩1, so it first reaches ₩2,000; from ₩2,000 it's in the ₩5 band, so the next tick is ₩2,005.
- 3. What's the smallest number of shares you can buy in Korea?
- Answer: 1 share.Korean stocks trade in single shares, with no whole-lot requirement.
Terms in this lesson
- board lot (Board Lot): The exchange's minimum trading unit. A-shares and Japanese stocks trade in lots of 100 shares, each Hong Kong stock sets its own, a Taiwan lot is 1,000 shares, and US and Korean stocks can be bought from 1 share.
- KOSPI and KOSDAQ (KOSPI & KOSDAQ): The two main stock markets of the Korea Exchange: KOSPI is mainly large companies, KOSDAQ mainly small, mid-size and tech companies. KOSPI also often refers to its composite index.
- tick (Tick): The smallest amount a price can move; the value of 1 tick = tick size × contract size.