Adding to '50,000 Electronics'... Retail Investors Turned Net Buyers with 1.6 Trillion KRW in One Month

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Myung-hwan Lee] Individual investors, often called 'ants,' have been buying Samsung Electronics shares again last month. It appears that individual investors engaged in 'averaging down' by net purchasing more than 1.6 trillion KRW worth of Samsung Electronics shares over about a month as the stock price fell back to the 50,000 KRW range.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 4th, from September 1 to September 2, individuals net purchased 1.6173 trillion KRW worth of Samsung Electronics shares. During the same period, the total net purchase amount by individuals in the KOSPI market was 1.5231 trillion KRW, indicating that excluding Samsung Electronics, individual investors showed a net selling trend in the KOSPI.

During this period, the net purchase amount of Samsung Electronics by individuals was overwhelmingly higher than other top net purchase stocks such as KakaoBank (320.4 billion KRW), NAVER (285 billion KRW), and SK Hynix (225.3 billion KRW).

From July 1 to 29, when Samsung Electronics recovered to the 60,000 KRW range, individual investors sold 116.3 billion KRW worth of shares. Throughout the first half of this year, Samsung Electronics had never fallen from the top spot in individual net purchases, but in July, the trading direction of individuals sharply turned to selling. However, as the stock price fell back to the 50,000 KRW range in August, they switched back to net buying within a month.

Samsung Electronics' stock price hit an intraday low of 55,700 KRW on July 4, marking the yearly low, then rebounded to an intraday high of 62,600 KRW on July 29. However, in August, the stock price fell again below 60,000 KRW. The closing price on the 2nd was 57,500 KRW, which is 6.35% lower than 61,400 KRW at the end of July.

Since the beginning of this year until the 2nd, individual investors have net purchased 16.6546 trillion KRW worth of Samsung Electronics shares. Dividing the net purchase amount by the quantity, the average purchase price is approximately 66,423 KRW. As the stock price dropped to the 50,000 KRW range, it is estimated that individual investors are rushing to buy, seeing it as an opportunity to lower the average cost of their Samsung Electronics holdings, so-called 'averaging down.'

Samsung Electronics' stock price declined since the beginning of the year due to global economic recession concerns and semiconductor industry instability but rebounded after early July amid a bear market rally. However, in August, as US semiconductor companies such as Nvidia and Micron consecutively forecasted poor earnings citing weakening memory semiconductor demand, concerns about the industry resurfaced, leading to a downward trend.

However, there is advice to focus on Samsung Electronics' fundamental strength, especially when the industry is sluggish. Min-sook Chae, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, said, "Although a slowdown in the semiconductor industry is expected from the second half of this year, this is an opportunity to verify the fundamentals of memory suppliers. Maintaining leading competitiveness in both DRAM and NAND market share and profitability, and adding future growth engines through foundry business, valuation rerating is possible."

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