So-called "Seohak Ants" (Korean retail investors investing in overseas markets) have resumed buying U.S. stocks, recording more than 4 trillion won in net purchases this month.

According to data on transactions from the 1st to the 21st of this month (based on settlement dates), domestic investors' net purchases of U.S. stocks totaled $2.87876 billion, or approximately 4.2605 trillion won.

Total purchases and sales reached $17.53263 billion and $14.65386 billion, respectively.

While net purchases stood at $1.94768 billion as of the 17th, they surged by about $1 billion in just two days on the 20th and 21st.

During those two days, Seohak Ants practically went "all-in" on buying SOXL, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks three times the daily return of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

During this period, net purchases of SOXL reached $1.08417 billion, more than 10 times that of SK Hynix ADR ($78.83 million), which ranked second in net purchases.

Net purchases of SOXL swelled to $2.43099 billion this month.

SK Hynix ADR ranked second with $599.22 million in net purchases.

Seohak Ants' total holdings of SOXL surpassed $5 billion, coming in at $5.209 billion.

This makes it the fourth-largest stock holding among U.S. equities held by Korean retail investors, following Tesla ($21.4 billion), Nvidia ($16.8 billion), and Alphabet ($8.2 billion).

After seeing a gradual decline earlier this year that turned into net selling, domestic investors' net purchase settlements for U.S. stocks shifted back to net buying starting last month, and have increased significantly this month.

Net purchase settlement amounts for U.S. stocks gradually decreased from $4.49863 billion in January, $3.94905 billion in February, and $1.6915 billion in March, before shifting to a net selling position of -$468.93 million in April.

Although net selling expanded to $939.77 million in May, it turned back to net buying ($632.96 million) in June and is showing a sharp increase again this month.

This trend is attributed to the domestic stock market continuing to exhibit unstable movements with high volatility, whereas the U.S. stock market has shown relatively solid trends alongside the listing of SK Hynix ADR.

Analysts also suggest that the exchange rate, which had soared to the mid-1,500 won range, dropping back below the 1,500 won mark has influenced the trend as well.