Foreigners continued to buy ETFs while selling close to KRW 200 trillion worth of domestic stocks this year.

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Go Eun-ji = Even while foreign investors have accumulated a net selling of nearly 200 trillion won in the stock market since the beginning of the year, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been consistently net buying.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 13th, foreigners (excluding other foreigners) net sold a total of 199.1045 trillion won in the stock market (excluding ETFs, etc.) from January 2 to the previous day.

The monthly foreign net purchase amount was 118.6 billion won, February -21.731 trillion won, March -35.8806 trillion won, April 1.1283 trillion won, May -44.7147 trillion won, June -48.6248 trillion won, July -9.8936 trillion won, August. -10.1756 trillion won, -21.5246 trillion won in September.

Between January and September of this year, there were only two months in which net purchases were recorded, and in particular, net sales continued for five consecutive months starting last May.

Even this month, net sales amounted to 8.4635 trillion won from the 1st to the 12th.

As such, foreign investment sentiment has hardly recovered in the stock market, but the situation is different in the ETF market.

Since the beginning of the year until the 12th, net purchases of domestically listed ETFs by foreigners totaled 9.6595 trillion won.

By month, KRW 151.4 billion in January, KRW 640.2 billion in February, KRW 735.5 billion in March, KRW 1.1198 trillion in April, KRW 648 billion in May, KRW 3.5101 trillion in June, KRW 1.2582 trillion in July, KRW 373.8 billion in August, and KRW 373.8 billion in September. The net buying streak continued throughout, including KRW 1.1458 trillion.

This month (1st to 12th), it showed a buying advantage of 76.6 billion won.

By period, the ETF with the largest net purchase by foreigners in terms of amount in the first half of this year (January to June), which was a 'bull market', was 'TIGER MSCI Korea TR' (KRW 1.7379 trillion), which invests in domestic large and mid-cap blue chip stocks.

'KODEX SK Hynix Single Stock Leverage' (KRW 607.2 billion) and 'TIGER US Nasdaq 100' (KRW 485.7 billion) followed.

From last July, when KOSPI was adjusted, to last month, 'KODEX Leverage' (KRW 641.1 billion), 'TIGER US NASDAQ 100' (KRW 634.9 billion), and 'KODEX 200' (KRW 584.3 billion) were purchased the most in that order.

This month (1st to 12th), products with opposite characteristics such as 'KODEX Leverage' (KRW 68.7 billion) and 'KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X' (KRW 33.3 billion) are also being purchased.

Among ETFs that invest in specific industries, 'TIGER Semiconductor TOP10 Leverage' (KRW 15.6 billion) was net purchased the most.

Lee Sang-hyun, a researcher at Meritz Securities, analyzed that “foreign fund inflows have not returned since the beginning of the year,” and “however, fund inflows through ETFs have been carried out in the direction of themes where stock prices have been sluggish, such as semiconductors, finance, and nuclear energy.”