(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Yu-ah = While foreign investors swept up KRW 6.5 trillion in KOSPI over the past week and mainly drove the index's rise through net purchases this month, individuals, on the contrary, sold more than KRW 7 trillion.
In particular, the 'two top semiconductor companies', Samsung Electronics [005930] and SK Hynix [000660], were first and second in weekly net purchases by foreigners, but were also first and second in weekly net sales by individuals, revealing a stark temperature difference.
According to the Korea Exchange on the 16th, foreign investors made net purchases of 6.547 trillion won during the week of the 10th to 14th. On the 10th, there was a net sale of about 1.5 trillion won, but over the next four trading days, net purchases ranged from 53.5 billion won to as much as 3.0387 trillion won per day.
Compared to the weekly net purchase volume of institutions that bought for four consecutive trading days from the 10th to the 13th, amounting to only 771.9 billion won, the volume of net purchase by foreigners was noticeably larger.
Accordingly, as of this month, foreigners are net buying 645 billion won. From May (net selling of KRW 44.5 trillion) to last month, there was net selling for three consecutive months, selling a total of close to KRW 103 trillion, but net buying is showing this month.
KB Securities' research headquarters explained in a report, "Foreigners were net sellers in KOSPI last week, but the shift to net purchases by immigrants played a major role in the index's recovery."
Thanks to the 'lion' of foreigners, KOSPI closed higher for all five trading days last week, rising a total of 11.5%. It is the highest weekly return since the 24th to 8th of the same month (13.63%), which includes May 6th when it first exceeded 7,000 pi.
On the other hand, individuals net sold 7.0846 trillion won during the same period. On the 10th, there was a net purchase of 900 billion won, but on the 11th to the 14th, there was a net sale for 4 consecutive trading days, showing the opposite behavior of foreigners.
Among these, foreigners purchased SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics the most last week. SK Hynix net bought 2.4311 trillion won and Samsung Electronics net bought 2.2802 trillion won, accounting for a whopping 70% of the weekly net buying.
Accordingly, the foreign ownership ratio of Samsung Electronics (46.61% as of the 7th), which had fallen to the lowest level since the financial crisis, is gradually recovering to 46.80% on the 14th. SK Hynix also slightly increased its share from 50.81% to 51.07% at the end of last week.
It was followed by SK Square (KRW 222.7 billion), the parent company of SK Hynix, and Celltrion (KRW 153.4 billion), and LG Electronics and Hyundai Motor Company (KRW 140 billion each), which belong to robot stocks.
During the same period, Samsung Electro-Mechanics was the largest net seller (KRW 153.3 billion), and GS (KRW 73.8 billion), Samhwa Capacitor (KRW 52.1 billion), and Korea Zinc (KRW 50.3 billion) were sold, but the amount was mostly below KRW 100 billion.
This period was a time when news from the United States came out that resolved doubts about the long-term profitability of AI and semiconductors, such as the performance growth of AI cloud companies Coreweave and Micron Computer and the announcement of memory company SanDisk's future performance blueprint.
Last week, AI cloud company Coreweave saw its second quarter sales surge by more than 110%, and server manufacturer Super Micro Computer announced that its third quarter sales would exceed market expectations by about 15%. In addition, SanDisk predicted that annual sales for the 2028-2030 fiscal year would record in the mid to high 10% range, thanks to strong demand for AI infrastructure expansion.
On the other hand, individuals sold the most Samsung Electronics, worth 3.5311 trillion won, followed by SK Hynix, with a net sale of 2.5792 trillion won. One securities industry official said, “As the KOSPI fell sharply last month and was a highly volatile market, it appears that many investors saw the recent bull market as an opportunity to make profits.”
It is predicted that as the inflow of foreign investment funds will continue in the future, a circular selling market may develop that spreads to purchases of other industries as well as semiconductors.
Lee Jae-man, a researcher at Hana Securities, said, "Concerns about an interest rate hike in the U.S. have eased, and the economy is expanding, so the probability of a decline in the dollar index is high. We can expect an inflow of foreign funds into the domestic stock market based on the weakening dollar." This means that if the won strengthens, the value of domestic stocks can be judged to increase accordingly.
He went on to explain, “We may also consider the possibility of foreign capital inflow into the automobile, transportation, communications, pharmaceutical/bio, secondary battery, and IT hardware industries, where foreign ownership has declined from its peak.”
In addition, while some are concerned about the trend of strengthening individual net sales, some are of the opinion that it will not be enough to slow down the upward momentum of the index.
Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, said, "It is necessary to avoid interpreting the recent decrease in deposits, which has fallen below the 100 trillion won range, as a decrease in individual ammunition. It is still above the level at the beginning of the year, 87 trillion won, and this is largely due to the execution of purchase funds." He added, "The supply of new ammunition is limited, but foreign supply and demand, which has recently shifted to net purchasing, may offset the gap."
