Korean Retail Investors Accumulate $859M in Semiconductor ETFs During July Decline

According to Korea Securities Depository (KSD Savero), domestic investors accumulated $859 million in semiconductor-related products during July 1-7, accounting for 72.5% of the top 10 foreign stock purchases. The largest position was the Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3X ETF (SOXL), with net inflows of $649 million, followed by Applied Materials at $80 million and the 2X Sandisk ETF at $43 million.

Contrary to retail investor appetite, Morgan Stanley advised clients to reduce positions in memory semiconductor stocks like Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron, citing slowing earnings estimate revisions. The bank recommended rotating into AI cloud infrastructure names including Alphabet and Amazon. Domestic securities analysts, however, maintain a constructive long-term outlook, arguing that current weakness reflects profit-taking rather than fundamental deterioration in memory chip fundamentals.