South Korea’s financial regulator on Tuesday said it will lift a three-month ban on short selling of non-financial stocks starting this week.

“The ban on short selling of non-financial shares will be lifted starting Nov. 10, but the measure on financial shares will be retained for the time being,” the Financial Services Commission said in an e-mailed statement.

The FSC had imposed a ban on short selling of all local stocks listed on the main KOSPI and the secondary tech-heavy KOSDAQ markets for three months starting on Aug. 10 on concern that foreigners’ heavy short selling would threaten the local market’s stability. Short selling is the sale of shares by borrowing them in anticipation of price falls.

Foreigners’ short selling quadrupled to around a daily average of 400 billion won ($357 million) in early August after the first-ever credit downgrade of United States pummeled global financial markets. 

(Yonhap News)