At the start of the year, high-net-worth investors bought semiconductor and global big tech stocks intensively.
According to KB Securities on the 18th, as of on the 9th, the No. 1 net buy among high-net-worth investors with average securities account balances of 1 billion won or more this year was Samsung Electronics. Samsung Electronics accounted for 29% of total net purchases of domestic stocks.
No. 2 was SK hynix with 18%. Nearly half of total net purchases were concentrated in the two stocks. It is interpreted that expectations of an improvement in the memory cycle driven by expanding artificial intelligence (AI) demand led to buying of large-cap semiconductor stocks.
Hyundai Motor (9.9%) also ranked near the top. Analysts said investor sentiment was lifted after Hyundai Motor Group unveiled the next-generation Humanoid Robot "Atlas" at "CES 2026," the world's largest consumer electronics and information technology (IT) show in January, and laid out its AI Robotics strategy.
Doosan Enerbility (4.9%), NAVER (3.4%), Alteogen (2.6%), and Samsung SDI (2.6%) followed.
KODEX KOSDAQ150 and KODEX KOSDAQ150 Leveraged, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that bet on a KOSDAQ rise, also ranked among the top net buys. Expectations for the government's KOSDAQ activation policy and for further upside due to relatively lower gains appear to have been reflected.
In overseas stocks, the tilt toward U.S. tech grew pronounced. Alphabet, Google's parent, was the top net buy, drawing 7.2% of net purchases in overseas stocks. Micron Technology (7.1%) was the second most bought, with Tesla (5.9%), SanDisk (5.3%), the "Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares" ETF (3.3%), Nvidia (2.9%), and Microsoft (2.2%) also heavily purchased.
With silver price volatility rising, the "iShares Silver Trust" ETF, which seeks profit when silver prices increase, also ranked among the top buys.