Retail investors bet on declines in the benchmark index and large-cap chip stocks after the KOSPI failed for a second straight session to hold above the 7,000 level. Over two days, more than 283 billion won flowed into just three major inverse exchange-traded funds.
Individuals bought a net 117.8 billion won of the KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X on the 7th and 8th, according to the Korea Exchange and Koscom's ETF CHECK on the 9th. That was the largest net buying by retail investors among all ETFs listed in South Korea. The product tracks twice the inverse of the daily return of the KOSPI 200 futures index, a structure known locally as a "double-inverse" fund.
Another 114.6 billion won flowed into the KODEX Inverse, which tracks the inverse of the KOSPI 200 index's daily return. Net retail buying of the two products alone reached 232.4 billion won. A further 50.3 billion won went into the SOL SK hynix Futures Single-Stock Inverse 2X, which tracks twice the inverse of SK hynix's (000660) daily return. Combined net buying across the three products came to 282.7 billion won.
The retail buying of inverse products was concentrated as the KOSPI moved around the 7,000 mark. The index jumped 4.61% on the 7th on strength in chip shares, and rose as high as 7,171.52 in intraday trading the previous day. It gave up all of those gains late in the session, however, closing at 6,954.52, down 0.58% from the previous trading day.
Individuals also took profits in the cash market. They sold a net 3.0333 trillion won on the main board the previous day, in contrast to net buying by foreign and institutional investors. The divide reflects widening disagreement among investors over whether the index can climb further near the 7,000 level after such a steep short-term rebound.
Brokerages, however, say the upward momentum in the chip sector remains intact, at odds with the short-term caution among retail investors. Expectations have grown that spending on artificial intelligence will keep expanding after OpenAI unveiled GPT-6 Astra. Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said the release "improved visibility for computing demand such as GPUs, as well as demand for high-performance memory including high-bandwidth memory and server DRAM, on the back of the spread of agentic AI, and that eased the burden on chip stocks that had grown heavy in terms of both flows and sentiment."
Mirae Asset Securities (006800) raised its target prices for both Samsung Electronics (005930) and SK hynix the previous day. It lifted its target for Samsung Electronics by 8.1% to 400,000 won, and raised its target for SK hynix to 3.1 million won from 2.8 million won. Kim Young-gun, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, said of Samsung Electronics that "we are reflecting the effect of the stronger won, but the earnings growth trend remains intact," adding that the company "is expected to maintain its memory hegemony through advances in HBM."
