A man walks past the Nextrade headquarters in Seoul, March 3. Yonhap

Retail investors are flocking to the country's first alternative stock exchange as the trading platform runs for extended trading hours and offers cheaper trading fees, data showed Tuesday.

The Nextrade (NXT), launched last Tuesday, runs for 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., longer than the trading hours of the main Korea Exchange (KRX) bourse, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The NXT also offers lower fees compared with the main bourse and introduces different stock bid and ask prices.

According to the data compiled by the NXT, stock turnover reached 79.9 billion won ($54.7 million) from March 4-7, around 98 percent of which, or 78.1 billion won worth of stocks, was made by retail investors.

Institutional investors accounted for 1.58 percent of the turnover, with foreign investors taking up 0.58 percent.

The data also showed that 44.8 percent of the total turnover was made during the premarket (8 a.m. to 8:50 a.m.) and aftermarket trading hours (3:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.), the data showed. (Yonhap)