What Stocks Are of Interest to Foreign Retail Investors in the Second Half? Tech Stocks and Index ETFs

Most Net Purchases in Alphabet and Amazon
Interest Also in Index-Related ETFs

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Hwajeong] Seo-hak Gaemi (domestic investors investing in overseas stocks) have been focusing on technology stocks and index-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the second half of the year. As technology stocks such as Alphabet and Microsoft (MS) and the US stock market continue to hit record highs, investor sentiment seems to be concentrated.

According to the Korea Securities Depository on the 14th, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, was the top net purchase among domestic investors' overseas stocks from the beginning of this month to the 12th. During this period, $54.47 million (about 62.7 billion KRW) was net purchased. Next was Amazon with $42.67 million in net purchases, followed by Facebook ($37.36 million), MS ($36.75 million), Carnival ($29.02 million), Roblox ($26.59 million), SoFi ($21.91 million), and Nvidia ($16.64 million), with most of the top net purchases being technology stocks.

Recently, technology stocks have shown strength in the US stock market. Although the US stock market, which had hit record highs for two consecutive trading days, showed weakness on the 13th (local time) due to the June Consumer Price Index (CPI) exceeding expectations, Alphabet, Amazon, MS, and Apple all recorded intraday record highs. This was the first time since September last year that these stocks hit intraday record highs on the same day. However, based on closing prices, only three stocks except Amazon, which closed down 1%, reached record highs.

In addition, Seo-hak Gaemi have shown interest in index-related ETFs. Since the beginning of this month, they net purchased $41.11 million of the ‘STANDARD & POORS DEPOSITORY RECEIPTS (SPDR’S)’, an ETF tracking the S&P 500, making it the third most purchased after Alphabet and Amazon. They also net purchased $32.32 million of ‘INVSC QQQ S1’, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index. The S&P 500 has risen more than 16% this year, and the Nasdaq has increased nearly 14%.

Regarding Tesla, which has long been considered Seo-hak Gaemi’s favorite stock, there has been a selling trend. Since the beginning of this month, Tesla has been net sold by $56.11 million. Seo-hak Gaemi’s affection for Tesla has rapidly cooled as Tesla’s stock price has underperformed this year. Tesla, which held the top net purchase position until April this year, dropped to second place in May and fell to 35th place in June. Tesla’s net purchase amount was $80.8 million in May, sharply decreased to $12.76 million in June, and turned to net selling this month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.