South Korea's margin loan balance rose to 28.42 trillion won on Aug. 5, up 1.01 trillion won in a day, as the Kospi rebounded 3.76% and the Kosdaq gained 2.42%, ending five straight sessions of contraction after a late-July sell-off. Investor deposits fell 7.19 trillion won to 103.21 trillion won, largely because funds tied to KNS I&C's Aug. 4-5 retail IPO subscription left brokerage accounts, while forced liquidation volume eased to 11.7 billion won from 31.5 billion won a day earlier and from more than 100 billion won on July 30-31, when circuit breakers were triggered. In parallel, South Korean securities firms sharply increased short-term funding to support margin trading, settlement needs and trading margin deposits, with cumulative commercial paper and electronic short-term bond issuance reaching 723.89 trillion won through Aug. 7, up 170.4% from a year earlier; a separate funding report cited margin loan balances of 38.63 trillion won on June 24 and 28.79 trillion won recently, differing from the daily August balance figures in the market-rebound report.