Retail investors are flooding the stock market following a recent rally, with the number of new accounts and transactions moving up sharply, the Korea Financial Investment Association said Monday.

As of Thursday, a record 25.06 million stock accounts were active. The number increased from November, when the secondary market, KOSDAQ, began to post strong gains. Some 170,000 stock trading accounts were added in October, which rose to 270,000 in November and to 220,000 in December. 280,000 accounts were newly opened in the first 25 days of January.

The accounts are considered active if they have more than 100,000 won ($93.91) in balance with a record of at least one transaction over a six-month period.

There were 24.78 million such accounts by end of last year. Considering that the country had an economically active population of 27.33 million, the figures theoretically translate to 90.7 percent of economically active people engaging in stock trading. The proportion was under 50 percent 10 years ago.

These retail investors also increased their transactions. They traded some 46.98 trillion won worth of stocks at the country's three bourses this month as of the 26th, accounting for 71.2 percent of the total. That compares with 59.4 percent in August last year, 61.9 percent in September, 61.8 percent in October, 67.8 percent in November and 67.5 percent in December, again showing a marked increase after the KOSDAQ boom.

Daily retail trading in January peaked at 87.1 percent.

Analysts see room for more inflow of private investors due to a lack of other viable financial investment tools. The government has been working to rein in real estate and cryptocurrency speculation, leaving investors without many choices, they say.

"There will be more than a neutral trend of stock prices this week when the (main) KOSPI attempts an unprecedented breakthrough past 2,600," Kim Yong-gu of Hana Financial Investment Co. said. (Yonhap)