Foreigners' stake in Samjeon, which was over 52% at the beginning of the year, fell to 46%... financial crisis level

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Yu-ah = While net selling by foreigners continues in the domestic stock market, the ownership rate of Samsung Electronics [005930] also falls every day, showing that it has not escaped the level of the financial crisis.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 11th, as of the 8th, foreigners' ownership of Samsung Electronics stock was 46.38%. On the 6th, it fell to 46.37%.

This is the lowest level in about 18 years and 9 months since January 11, 2008 (46.35%) during the financial crisis.

The percentage of Samsung Electronics owned by foreigners began to rise at the end of last year when the KOSPI began to rise in earnest and rose to 52.40% at the beginning of this year.

However, it broke away from 50% due to the global stock market shock in March, immediately after the outbreak of war between the United States and Iran, and maintained the 48% range until May, when it surpassed '7,000 PHP' and '8,000 PHP' in succession. Afterwards, entering July, it exceeded 47%, and gradually fell to the low 46% level this month. It remained at a similar level in December 1998, during the IMF crisis.

Even though Samsung Electronics announced that it had recorded a record-high operating profit of 107 trillion won in the third quarter, foreign selling continued.

SK Hynix's foreign ownership rate was 49.59%.

Considering that it has maintained above 50% since 2023 and increased to 56.41% in 2024 alone, this is a notable decline. This number has been below 50% since the end of last month and has been falling from the 49% range for 8 trading days.

In particular, compared to the high point at the beginning of this year (54.64%), it fell by 5 percentage points.

As the ownership rate of these 'two tops' falls, the foreign ownership rate of the KOSPI electrical/electronics industry to which the two stocks belong naturally also dropped from 40.87% to 38.09% at the beginning of this year.

Foreigners are net selling more than KRW 197 trillion on KOSPI this year. Compared to net sales of around 4 trillion won last year, flat in 2024, and net purchases of around 11 trillion won in 2023, this is an unprecedented scale.

Net selling by foreigners, including large-cap semiconductor stocks, is also putting a burden on the overall supply and demand in the domestic stock market.

Lee Jae-won, a researcher at Yuanta Securities, analyzed, "We reaffirmed that this is an environment in which it is difficult to expect a reversal in foreign supply and demand based on good performance alone. Political and geopolitical events themselves do not directly lead to the return of foreigners."

He continued, “In the end, it is necessary to respond by checking for signs of change rather than predicting the timing of foreigners’ return,” and suggested, “Further expansion of the proportion should be linked to changes in supply and demand of foreigners. A split response strategy will be effective in the process of easing selling pressure.”