Hanwha Asset Management said on the 11th that the PLUS Global HBM Semiconductor exchange-traded fund (ETF) delivered a return of more than 950% since listing, buoyed by strength in the global memory chip market.
According to Hanwha Asset Management, as of the 8th of this month, the product returned 11.67% over the past month. Medium- to long-term returns also showed a steep rise. The year-to-date performance reached 140.30%, and the return over the past year was 388.07%. The cumulative return since listing came to 950.35%. The six-month return was also tallied at 70.33%, ranking first across all overseas equity ETFs in cumulative performance for six months, one year, year to date, two years, and three years.
Hanwha Asset Management said a portfolio that appropriately diversified leading corporations driving the global memory industry led to strong results. It said the design reduced risk concentrated in a specific country or single stock while allowing investors to benefit from the overall upcycle in the global memory market.
It secured manufacturing competitiveness in HBM and DRAM through the domestic corporations Samsung Electronics(005930) and SK hynix(000660), and captured growth in HBM, DRAM, NAND flash, and data storage devices by including U.S. Micron and SanDisk. It said the ETF addressed the blind spot where existing domestic semiconductor ETFs were skewed toward materials, parts, and equipment or Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, while U.S. semiconductor ETFs leaned toward AI compute chips such as Nvidia and Broadcom.
It particularly assessed that Micron, which is drawing expectations on expanding demand for AI server use, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix centered on HBM and high value-added DRAM, and SanDisk, which covers NAND flash and data storage devices, are creating synergy. It said the design is optimized for a market environment where, due to the rapid growth of Generative AI and the cloud industry, the ability to process large volumes of data at high speed and store it stably has become simultaneously important.
Hanwha Asset Management diversified its lineup in step with rising investment demand for memory and storage. In Aug., it unveiled the PLUS SK hynix SanDisk 50 Bond Mixed ETF, which focuses on memory players such as SK hynix and SanDisk while blending in bonds to strengthen stability.
Geum Jeong-seop, head of the ETF Business Division at Hanwha Asset Management, said, "In Aug., we launched the PLUS SK hynix SanDisk 50 Bond Mixed ETF, which includes SK hynix and U.S. SanDisk together," and added, "We recommend it to investors who want to lower volatility compared with equity products by focusing on pure memory semiconductor corporations while mixing in bonds."