As Korea's stock market slumped, individual investors have been moving funds to U.S. markets, but with major tech stocks weakening, the valuation has fallen by 50 trillion won over the past two months.
According to the Savero portal of the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) on the 2nd, the net purchases of U.S. stocks by Korean retail investors trading U.S. stocks in July totaled $4,642.41 million (about 6.7129 trillion won). It was the largest in six months since January ($5,002.99 million).
During that time, Korean retail investors trading U.S. stocks were net sellers of U.S. equities due to the strength of Korea's market. Following April ($468.92 million), the net selling expanded in May ($939.77 million). However, as Korea's market plunged in June, they turned to net purchases of $632.95 million, and in July they sharply increased buying.
In contrast, U.S. stock holdings fell from $204.1 billion at the end of May to $170.4 billion on the 30th of last month, down $33.7 billion (about 48.7 trillion won). On a valuation basis, that is a decrease of about 16.5%.
It is attributed to steep declines in major holdings. The stock most held by Korean retail investors trading U.S. stocks is Tesla ($17,928.73 million). Nvidia ($16,012.16 million) and Alphabet ($8,078.01 million) followed. During the same period, their share prices fell 29.1%, 4.9% and 6.3%, respectively.
Stocks that Korean retail investors trading U.S. stocks net bought in July are also on a downtrend. The most net bought in July was SOXL (Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3X Shares ETF), a triple-leveraged semiconductor ETF, with net purchases of $3,741.99 million. Next were SpaceX class A ($2,096.82 million) and SK hynix ADR ($843.70 million). They fell 57%, 36.5% and 14.45%, respectively.