Korean Retail Investors Snap Up More Than $450 Million of Amazon, Micron, SanDisk in Four-Day Buying Spree

Korean retail investors shift to individual tech stocks

Amazon leads net buying with $151.49 million from Aug. 3 to Aug. 6

Korean retail investors in US equities, often dubbed “Seohak ants,” have turned to individual technology stocks this month and are buying aggressively.

Data from Seibro, the securities information portal of the Korea Securities Depository, showed retail investors were net buyers of Amazon shares worth $151.49 million between Aug. 3 and Aug. 6, based on inquiry dates. Micron Technology and SanDisk followed with net purchase settlement amounts of $151.02 million and $147.62 million, respectively.

The shift contrasts sharply with July, when the Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3X Shares ETF, known as SOXL, and SK Hynix American depositary receipts ranked first and second in net buying.

Amazon, Micron and SanDisk did not place among the top 50 most-bought names in July, but that pattern reversed abruptly this month.

SK Hynix ADRs, by contrast, slipped to fifth in net buying, while SOXL disappeared from the top 50. Over the same period, Korean retail investors were net sellers of SOXL by $1.84254 billion.

The renewed buying of large technology stocks comes as share prices rebounded sharply after Big Tech cloud businesses posted earnings that beat market expectations.

On July 31, major semiconductor and technology stocks posted double-digit gains, with Amazon up 15.32%, Micron up 18.36%, SanDisk up 25.99%, AMD up 13.00% and Intel up 11.30%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index also climbed 8.19%.

SOXL had risen above $200 in early July before falling below $100. Its recent recovery appears to have prompted retail investors to take profits on a large scale.

Cash parked on the sidelines of the stock market was little changed.

The Korea Financial Investment Association’s statistics portal showed investor deposits stood at 104.0712 trillion won as of Aug. 6, little changed from 104.6584 trillion won a week earlier on July 30. The balance temporarily jumped to 110.4071 trillion won on Aug. 4, apparently because funds briefly flowed in and then out during the retail subscription for KNSINC, a satellite communications antenna solutions company.

Outstanding margin loans, a barometer of leveraged stock investing, fell 10.4% from a week earlier to 28.7940 trillion won from 32.1531 trillion won. The decline suggests risk aversion increased as stock indexes remained weak.

In South Korea’s ETF market, KODEX Leverage attracted the most money over the week from July 31 to Aug. 6, pulling in 448.2 billion won.

It was followed by KODEX KOSDAQ150 with 423.7 billion won, KODEX 200 with 382.7 billion won, TIGER US S&P500 with 199.1 billion won and KODEX KOSDAQ150 Leverage with 181.7 billion won.

Single-stock leveraged products, whose minimum basic deposit requirement was raised to 30 million won from 10 million won, fell outside the top 80 in fund inflows, indicating demand slowed markedly.

Kim So-yeon, Hankyung.com reporter sue123@hankyung.com