This year, as semiconductor stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have shown strength, money has been flowing rapidly into related exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Among domestic-listed semiconductor ETFs over the past six months, the "PLUS Global HBM Semiconductor" ETF delivered the strongest performance with a return of more than 112%.
According to Korea Fund Ratings' FundSquare on Dec. 10, a net 2.3267 trillion won flowed into 43 domestically listed semiconductor ETFs over the past six months (June 10–Dec. 10). During the same period, the size of net worth nearly doubled from 7.2577 trillion won to 14.3112 trillion won.
The highest return came from the "PLUS Global HBM Semiconductor" ETF. Its six-month return is 112.49%. It outpaced the No. 2 "IBKITFK-AI Semiconductor Core Tech" ETF (92.98%) by nearly 20 percentage points. No. 3 was the "NH-Amundi HANARO FnK-Semiconductor" ETF (92.51%), No. 4 was the "Samsung KODEX AI Semiconductor" ETF (88.53%), and No. 5 was the "Woori WON Semiconductor Value Chain Active" ETF (87.71%). Leveraged ETFs were excluded from the ranking.
The difference in returns stemmed from differences in portfolio composition. Among the top five ETFs, the only product that includes overseas semiconductor corporations is the "PLUS Global HBM Semiconductor" ETF. This ETF allocates more than 25% to Micron Technology (hereinafter Micron) in the United States, and Micron's share price surged from around $100 in mid-Aug. to $263 on the 10th on exploding DRAM demand driven by the spread of artificial intelligence (AI).
A Hanwha Asset Management official said, "Unlike existing semiconductor ETFs that diversify across the entire value chain, including materials, components, and equipment corporations, this product took a strategy of concentrating nearly 80% in the three manufacturers that hold an oligopoly in the global memory semiconductor market."
Experts' outlook on the semiconductor cycle is also largely positive. A supply shortage and AI server demand are driving a price rebound. Global investment bank (IB) JPMorgan said in a report released on the 11th, "Thanks to solid investment capacity by U.S. CSPs (cloud service providers) and suppliers' conservative capacity expansion stance, the AI and semiconductor upcycle will extend through 2027."
SK hynix also said at last month's earnings briefing, "Current semiconductor demand is expanding into unprecedented applications such as Autonomous Driving and Robotics, based on the AI paradigm shift," adding, "As AI moves from the training phase to the inference phase, demand for general servers that assist computational loads is also growing."
In fact, semiconductor prices have risen sharply recently. According to global market research firm TrendForce, the average selling price (ASP) of overall DRAM in the third quarter of this year rose 8%–13% from the previous quarter, maintaining a solid uptrend. The sales share of the high-margin product High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) exceeded 30% of total DRAM, which is seen as driving the price increase.