Because Toss Securities mistakenly displayed Kolmar Korea results on a standalone rather than consolidated basis, an ‘earnings surprise’ instantly turned into an ‘earnings shock’. Investors who sold the stock after viewing data on Toss Securities filed numerous complaints.

According to the securities industry on the 8th, on the morning of the day an error occurred in Toss Securities mobile trading system (MTS) in which Kolmar Korea sales were displayed on a standalone (parent-company) basis rather than on a consolidated basis.

Kolmar Korea disclosed that its first-quarter consolidated sales and operating profit were 728.0 billion won and 78.9 billion won, respectively, that day. They increased 11.5% and 31.6% from a year earlier. This is the highest quarterly performance on record.

However, Toss Securities provided investors with standalone (parent-company) results rather than consolidated results. On a standalone basis, sales were 343.0 billion won and operating profit was 51.2 billion won. As a result, Toss Securities wrongly notified that Kolmar Korea first-quarter results for this year, compared with the first quarter of last year on a consolidated basis, showed a 47.5% decline in sales and a 14.5% decline in operating profit.

Toss Securities corrected the erroneous performance information, but investors posted complaints on the Toss Securities MTS, saying they traded the stock based on the wrong information and incurred losses.

One investor wrote, “I saw the disclosure today and panic-sold Kolmar Korea. Please refund me”. Others posted complaints such as “I am too uneasy to manage large sums on Toss” “An earnings surprise turned into an earnings shock” “What were the results I saw? Did I sell after misreading something?”.

Another investor said, “When I called the Toss customer center, only an estimated wait time of 21 minutes appeared.”

On the same day, Toss Securities announced via a notice on the MTS, “We sincerely apologize for the confusion caused in using the service,” and “To prevent a recurrence of the same problem, we will comprehensively review and improve the processes for reflecting and inspecting disclosures.”