Investors returning to the domestic stock market sold Nvidia and Tesla and bought Samsung Electronics and SK hynix.
Kakao Pay Securities said the number of domestic stock return accounts (RIA) opened surpassed 50,000 as of the 6th of this month. In particular, an analysis of the 50,000 accounts found that the top overseas stock deposits were tallied in the order of ▲Nvidia ▲Tesla ▲SOXL (semiconductor 3x leveraged ETF) ▲Alphabet ▲Palantir. In contrast, on the same reference date, the top domestic stock purchases by amount were ▲Samsung Electronics ▲SK hynix ▲TIGER Semiconductor TOP10 ETF ▲KODEX AI Power Core Equipment ETF ▲Hyundai Motor.
Kakao Pay Securities analyzed that profit-taking was concentrated in large U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor stocks, and that funds realized from overseas AI and semiconductor names were being reinvested into Korea's semiconductor and AI value chain.
AI and semiconductor concentration was also evident in the distribution by industry and theme. Classifying RIA account balances by industry, among overseas stocks AI and semiconductors accounted for 19% of the top 40 names, the largest share, followed by electric vehicles (8%) and big tech (6%). Among domestic stocks, AI and semiconductors also had the largest weight at 16% of the top 30 names.
An RIA is a temporary tax-advantaged account that allows investors to reinvest funds from selling overseas stocks into domestic stocks and the like and, if held for more than one year, receive a capital gains tax reduction.
A Kakao Pay Securities official said, "The rapid growth of RIA accounts shows investors seeking to actively leverage opportunities in the domestic market along with the effect of reducing capital gains taxes," and added, "Users with experience in overseas stock investing are expanding their scope to flagship domestic names and ETFs."