South Korean Retail Investors Shift to Net Buying of U.S. Stocks in June, Heavily Loading Up on 'SOXL' ETF

South Korean retail investors, often referred to as "Seohak Ants," have been aggressively net buying a specific exchange-traded fund (ETF) known as "SOXL" over the past five days.

This shift has caused the overall trading trend of these investors in the U.S. stock market to flip from net selling to net buying in June, following a trend of net selling throughout April and May.

According to the Securities Information Portal of the Korea Securities Depository on June 14, retail investors purchased $1.75 billion (approximately 2.6 trillion won) worth of the "Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3X Shares ETF" in the U.S. market between June 8 and 12.

This product, commonly called "SOXL," is an ETF that tracks three times the daily performance of the PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index.

The net purchase volume of "SOXL" is approximately nine times larger than that of "KORU" (Direxion Shares ETF Trust Daily MSCI South Korea Bull), which saw $200 million in net purchases and ranked second last week.

"KORU" is a leveraged product that tracks three times the performance of the South Korean stock market.

While "SOXL" was the most net-purchased stock by South Korean retail investors in March, it recorded net selling between June 1 and 5.

However, as the second week of June began, retail investors resumed "aggressive buying," propelling the ETF to the top spot by an overwhelming margin.

The PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index consists of global semiconductor companies listed on the Nasdaq, including Nvidia, TSMC, Micron, Intel, and AMD.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are not included in this index.

The surge in "SOXL" buying by retail investors is interpreted as a strong reflection of expectations that the index will continue to rise based on the earnings of these companies.

In fact, the index jumped by approximately 8% on June 11, marking its largest single-day gain in a year.

Micron, which was the top net-purchased stock in May and the first week of June ($580 million), saw its net purchases drop to $35 million in the second week, falling to ninth place.

Consequently, for the period of June 1 to 12, "SOXL" ranked first in net purchases with approximately $1.29 billion.

This is five times the amount of the second-ranked Micron ($290 million).

Broadcom followed in third place with $120 million.

Driven by the aggressive buying of "SOXL," South Korean retail investors net purchased $800 million (1.2 trillion won) worth of U.S. stocks between June 8 and 12.

While they had sold off $790 million worth of stocks from June 1 to 5, continuing a trend of net selling in the U.S. market for the previous two consecutive months, the net purchase volume rebounded significantly from June 8 to 12.

As a result, the cumulative trading volume from June 1 to 12 reached $15.39 billion in purchases and $15.38 billion in sales, marking a shift to a net buying position of $10 million.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.