Volatility marked the politics-driven stocks listed on the stock exchanges of South Korea where election season has rolled around.

Investors who bet on these so-called “political” stocks lost 1.55 trillion won ($1.3 billion) between June 11 last year and May 31 this year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.

The FSS had recently conducted a survey on some 35 stocks that appeared to be moving in tandem to the current political climate or the three central figures running in the presidential election ― Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye, independent Ahn Cheol-soo and the Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in.

“What we’ve done is round up the stocks deemed politically linked by the media or on the Internet, then did a survey on them which showed that investors actually did lose a substantial amount of money on these particular stocks,” said Han Eun-soo of the FSS’ special taskforce for overseeing politics-driven stocks.

Also, as of September this year, the prices of another 131 stocks also classified as politically motivated slid an average 46% from their peak prices, the government figures showed.

It’s typical to see the local stock markets behave accordingly to political trends or issues, according to experts here, who warned against making ill-informed investment choices in the heat of the moment.

“The chances are that these stocks will take a plunge as soon as the elections are over, or even sooner,” said Han Chi-hwan, a senior analyst with Daewoo Securities who forecast that the concerned issues will continue to experience severe fluctuation.

Stocks of Mirae Corp., a company whose core business involves semiconductor equipment, and those issued by Ahn Lab, the company Ahn Cheol-soo previously set up, have been under-performing despite the prominently high support ratings for Ahn.

Mirae Corp. stocks, in particular, have been freefalling for almost a week after its largest shareholder unloaded his entire share after Ahn announced his presidential bid. It closed at 618 won on Tuesday, down 14.99 percent from the previous day’s trading.

“So you see, there are many, many factors in how the stocks or the markets react. It’s not only the ratings,” said Han of Daewoo Securities. “If you consider only the support ratings, it doesn’t make sense for some of these stocks to fall.”

On the other hand, stocks with connections to Moon Jae-in were seen to ascend. Barunson Inc. and Wooridul Life Sciences and Wooridul Pharmaceutical, for instance, all received a boost in recent weeks. Wooridul Life Sciences closed at 2,265 won on Tuesday, up almost 15 percent from Monday.

Wooridul Pharmaceutical’s chairwoman was one of late President Roh Moo-hyun’s sponsors, and her husband is the second-largest shareholder. Given Moon’s ties to Roh’s legacy, market watchers have long foreseen the boost in Wooridul-affiliated stocks despite that the Wooridul Hospital Group has recently been mired in a string of bad news including heavy debt and a divorce lawsuit between the owners.

The government said it would continue to keep an eye on the stock market and in particular, the politics-driven stocks up until the presidential elections and for some time after the event.

“This happens every year, and we want investors to be careful and not make rash decisions,” Han said.

The main index KOSPI on Tuesday ended at 1991.41 points, down 0.6% from the previous day.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)