Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
Single-stock leverage carries 71.5% of Korean retail's September chip ETF selling
Individuals net sold 459.8 billion won across five semiconductor ETFs in the first eleven days of September and put 90.1 billion won into the gold, nuclear, battery and power funds credited with the rotation.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- The ACE KRX Gold Spot drew the largest net buying from individuals among sector and commodity ETFs between the 1st and 11th of September, at 21.7 billion won, on Korea Exchange and Koscom ETF CHECK data.
- Over the same eleven days, individuals net sold 179.1 billion won of the KODEX SK hynix Single Stock Leverage, the largest outflow of any fund on the list.
- Three single-stock leverage products on Samsung Electronics and SK hynix account for 328.7 billion won of the 459.8 billion won net sold across the five named semiconductor funds.
- September's 77.3 billion won of selling in the SOL AI Semiconductor Top 2 Plus reverses 2.2% of the 3.48 trillion won that fund attracted from January to June.
- Individuals' five largest single-stock net purchases this month were Hyundai Motor, LG Innotek, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, APR and Hyundai Mobis, while Samsung Electronics and SK hynix led net selling.
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Why it matters
- constraint The named destinations absorb 19.6% of what came out of the chip funds, so the ETF flow record can support a claim about what individuals sold and very little about where four-fifths of the money now sits.
- contradiction Individuals put 20.6 billion won into a semiconductor covered-call fund while taking 53.8 billion won out of the plain version of the same top-ten basket, so the month looks as much like a change of payoff shape inside chips as a change of sector.
- decision Leverage was relocated, not abandoned: for every 26 won of single-stock chip leverage sold, individuals added one won to a battery leverage fund, which keeps a geared product in the retail book.
- exposure Anyone buying the gold spot funds at September prices is buying into a house forecast whose year-end close is 4.4% under the top of its own range and 9.9% over the bottom.
The selling is concentrated in one name. The KODEX and TIGER SK hynix Single Stock Leverage funds together account for 266.6 billion won of the September outflow, 58% of everything individuals took out of the five chip funds on the list [6]. Seoul Economic Daily attributes the move to the KOSPI's rally losing momentum and to investors locking in gains on the chip stocks that led the first half [2].
Eleven days is a small sample against the position being unwound. The three semiconductor ETFs on the first-half tally, which excludes single-stock leveraged products, took in 6.52 trillion won between January and June [7], so the 459.8 billion won of named September selling gives back 7.05% of that [8].
Behind the gold buying sits a central-bank bid. Global central banks bought a net 288.9 tons in the second quarter, up 62% from a year earlier [10], which puts the year-earlier quarter near 178 tons [10]. The two gold spot funds on the buy list took 33.4 billion won between them in the eleven days [13]. "We forecast a trading range of $4,100 to $4,750 through year-end, with a year-end close of around $4,550," said Ok Ji-hoe, an analyst at Samsung Futures [11].
APR turns up on both sides of the same story. Cosmetics exports reached $6.82 billion through July, up 26.7% from a year earlier, with sales widening from the United States into Europe and Latin America [12]. Song Ji-yeon, an analyst at Sangsangin Investment & Securities, recommended an overweight position on the cosmetics sector, naming APR and Cosmax as top picks and Pum-Tech Korea as a secondary pick [13].
Seoul Economic Daily frames the month as holdings once concentrated in semiconductors diversifying into gold, nuclear power, secondary batteries and power equipment [1]. In my view individuals cut leverage first and picked themes second, and the September sums are too small to carry more than that. Two outcomes would settle it. If the hynix leverage funds keep bleeding through late September while the gold, nuclear and power equipment funds keep adding at the pace of the first eleven days, the rotation is durable. If chip inflows resume the week the index does [2], this was profit-taking inside a trend that never broke.
What to watch
- Third-quarter central bank gold purchases against the 288.9 tons bought in the second quarter, since that bid is the stated support for the gold ETF buying.
- Whether cosmetics export growth holds the 26.7% pace recorded through July, which is what the APR position rests on.
- Whether the 3.8 billion won KODEX AI Power Core Equipment inflow scales up or stays a retail-sized position.