Foreign Investors Dump 20 Trillion Won in 'Samsung-Hynix' Stocks, But Bet on Them Elsewhere

It has been found that foreign investors, who have offloaded massive amounts of shares in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—the two pillars of the domestic stock market—are exhibiting the exact opposite trading behavior in the market for leveraged ETFs based on these same stocks.

They are employing a "two-track strategy": selling off the actual shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix while repeatedly buying and selling single-stock leveraged ETF products based on them to capitalize on every upward swing.

According to the Korea Exchange, foreign investors net sold approximately 12.6 trillion won worth of Samsung Electronics and 7.8 trillion won worth of SK Hynix between May 27 and June 12.

In total, they offloaded a staggering 20.48 trillion won from these two stocks alone.

Due to this prolonged selling spree, foreign ownership in these companies has fallen to its lowest level this year.

This move appears to be a large-scale profit-taking exercise following a sharp rise in stock prices driven by expectations of artificial intelligence demand.

However, a completely different trend has emerged in the single-stock leveraged ETF market during the same period.

Foreign investors have been engaging in "ping-pong trading," where they buy leveraged ETFs, realize profits after a few days, and then buy them again.

In fact, foreign investors recorded net buying in SK Hynix leveraged ETFs for 7 out of the 12 trading days.

A similar pattern of alternating between buying and selling was observed for Samsung Electronics leveraged ETFs.

While they reduced their holdings of the actual shares, they have maintained their investment exposure to the semiconductor sector by aggressively betting on high-risk, high-return products during periods of price growth.

This, combined with changes in the investment patterns of individual investors, has made the supply and demand structure for semiconductors even more complex.

An increasing number of individual investors are also shifting away from buying actual shares as they did in the past, opting instead for leveraged ETFs that target double the returns.

Consequently, experts point out that with the combination of foreign investors' cross-trading in ETFs and individual investors' indirect investments, one must now monitor not only the actual shares but also the supply and demand flows of ETFs and derivatives to accurately read the market trends of semiconductor "blue-chip" stocks.

Reported by Lee Hyun-young | Video by Hong Jin-young | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.