Korean Retail Investors Pivot from SpaceX to Semiconductor Stocks

Retail investors in Korea, known as "Seohak Ants," who aggressively bought shares of SpaceX immediately following its public listing, have shifted their strategy back to net buying semiconductor stocks, data shows.

According to Seibro, the securities information portal of the Korea Securities Depository, on June 28, the most purchased stock by individual investors in the U.S. market last week (June 22 – 26) was the Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3X Shares ETF (SOXL), which tracks three times the daily performance of the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index.

During this period, retail investors' net buying of this ETF reached 627.67 million dollars (approximately 963.9 billion won), nearing the 1 trillion won mark.

Micron ranked second in net buying at 301.25 million dollars, followed by the Roundhill Memory ETF (208.49 million dollars) in third and Intel (134.06 million dollars) in fourth.

The Roundhill Memory ETF includes holdings in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

This means the top four net-bought stocks were all semiconductor-related.

This marks a contrast to the period following the SpaceX listing on June 12, when investors went on a buying spree, purchasing a total of 1.9496 billion dollars worth of shares over four days.

During the same recent period, retail investors net sold 69.2 million dollars worth of SpaceX shares.

It appears they have moved to take profits.

Since its listing, SpaceX shares significantly exceeded the initial public offering price of 135 dollars, climbing above 200 dollars, but fell to 153 dollars on June 25.

Meanwhile, Micron's stock price, which stood at 1,051.77 dollars on June 23, surged to 1,213.56 dollars on June 25 after the company announced that its third-quarter (March – May) revenue had skyrocketed by 345.7 percent compared to the same period last year.

As a result, the total valuation of SOXL held by Korean retail investors has reached 6.22338 billion dollars (9.5578 trillion won), nearing 10 trillion won.

It now ranks as the fourth-largest holding among U.S. stocks owned by individual investors.

Micron holdings are ranked fifth, with a valuation of 5.93549 billion dollars.

The valuation of SpaceX shares held by these investors has decreased to 1.61979 billion dollars (2.4876 trillion won), placing it 24th.

The valuation had previously soared to 1.91486 billion dollars on June 18 due to factors such as share price increases.

After recording net selling in the U.S. market during April and May, Korean retail investors have recorded a net purchase of 870 million dollars this month through their investments in SpaceX and semiconductor stocks.

(Photo: Getty Images)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.