South Korean retail investors, known as "Seohak ants" who invest in the U.S. stock market, have invested more than 100 billion won into an exchange-traded fund holding Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix over the past week.

According to SEIBRO, the securities information portal of the Korea Securities Depository, today (the 22nd), retail investors net purchased 85.61 million dollars (approx. 118.5 billion won) worth of the Roundhill Memory ETF from August 14 to 20 (based on settlement dates).

This marks the second-largest amount among overseas investment stocks by Seohak ants, following Alphabet (89.12 million dollars).

The Roundhill Memory ETF is a U.S.-listed active ETF that heavily invests in memory semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron.

The influx of capital into the related ETF appears to be driven by the recent recovery of semiconductor stocks in domestic and international stock markets, which had previously experienced a lull.

Over the past two weeks (August 10–21), SK Hynix rose 21.66% and Samsung Electronics gained 21.86%.

This more than doubles the KOSPI's growth rate (10.45%) over the same period.

Micron and SanDisk also rose 11.0% and 32.0%, respectively, between August 10 and 20.

Among domestic ETFs, massive funds flowed into products tracking major U.S. indices.

According to Koscom's ETF CHECK, the domestic-listed ETF with the highest net capital influx over the past week (August 14–20) was "TIGER U.S. S&P 500" (170.9 billion won), followed by "KODEX U.S. Nasdaq 100" (132.3 billion won).

"KODEX KOSPI" (120.5 billion won) and "KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X" (110.2 billion won) ranked third and fourth, respectively.

The KODEX KOSPI tracks the KOSPI index at a positive 1x multiplier, while the KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X follows it at a negative 2x multiplier, representing contrasting products.

The fact that similar amounts of capital flowed into both products indicates a balance among investors betting on both the rise and fall of the KOSPI amid a volatile market.

Investor deposit funds, which serve as market standby capital, stood at 105.3542 trillion won as of August 20.

According to the Korea Financial Investment Association statistics, investor deposits—which had dropped to 97.9289 trillion won on August 11—surpassed 100 trillion won again on August 14 and have been fluctuating around 105 trillion won.

The credit transaction loan balance, an indicator of leveraged investing ("bit-tu"), reached 31.8939 trillion won on August 20, marking a 3.1% increase compared to the previous week (August 13).

The credit balance recovered to the 30 trillion won mark on August 10 after hitting 27.4038 trillion won on August 4, and has since been on an upward trajectory.