Top Tesla (TSLA.US)! Korean retail investors' US stock holdings surpass $100 billion for the first time
1min read With growing interest in large tech stocks and leveraged funds, Korean retail investors have increased their holdings of US stocks to over $100bn for the first time.
According to the Korea Securities Information Association, as of November 7, retail traders held a total of $101.4bn worth of US stocks, up 64 per cent from the whole of last year.
More individual investors are investing directly in US stocks to seek better returns as the country’s composite index has fallen to become one of the worst-performing global indices this year. At the same time, they have net sold $44bn worth of benchmark index stocks so far this year, despite authorities trying to revive the local market by strengthening corporate governance.
Assets in volatile sectors such as cryptocurrencies and tech stocks are their preferred choice. The most popular stock among Korean investors is Tesla (TSLA.US), with data showing that individual investors held a total of $16.7bn worth of Tesla shares as of last week. Traders also held $13.8bn worth of Nvidia (NVDA.US) shares, $4.6bn worth of Apple (AAPL.US) shares and $3.6bn worth of Microsoft (MSFT.US) shares.
There is also high demand for leveraged ETFs that track US tech stocks. Among the six funds held by these investors, there is one that seeks to provide three times the daily return of the Nasdaq 100, and another that aims to provide three times the daily return of US chip stocks.