Visitors tour booths at “SEMICON Korea 2026” held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on Feb. 11 this year. Reporter Sung Hyung-joo
With Korea’s stock market moving around Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, semiconductor-related products are also sweeping the top exchange-traded fund (ETF) returns.
According to the Korea Exchange on Tuesday, the top-performing ETF from the start of this month through the 19th was the ‘TIGER SK hynix Single-Stock Leverage’ ETF, at 31.22%. It was followed by ‘KODEX SK hynix Single-Stock Leverage’ (31.13%), ‘ACE SK hynix Single-Stock Leverage’ (29.71%), ‘SOL SK hynix Single-Stock Leverage’ (29.67%), ‘RISE SK hynix Single-Stock Leverage’ (28.25%) and ‘KIWOOM SK hynix Futures Single-Stock Leverage’ (27.06%). All seven SK hynix single-stock leveraged ETFs listed last month ranked among the top ETF performers this month.
Including these, all of the top 14 were semiconductor-related ETFs. Moreover, except for ‘KODEX 200 Long KOSDAQ 150 Short Futures’ (15th, 18.18%), all funds up to 21st place were semiconductor-related ETFs. Among them were overseas chip ETFs, including ‘PLUS Global HBM Semiconductor’ (11th, 19.97%), ‘TIGER Japan Semiconductor FACTSET’ (12th, 19.19%), ‘TIGER U.S. Philadelphia Semiconductor Leverage (Synthetic)’ (13th, 19.50%) and ‘KODEX China AI Semiconductor TOP 10’ (16th, 18.11%).
Capital inflows into semiconductor ETFs are also continuing. According to Koscom’s ETF CHECK, ‘KODEX SK hynix Single-Stock Leverage’ saw net inflows of 247.7 billion won from the 12th through the 18th of this month. This was the second-largest scale after ‘KODEX 200’ (681.3 billion won). In addition, ‘KODEX Samsung Electronics Single-Stock Leverage’ and ‘PLUS Global HBM Semiconductor’ attracted 164.4 billion won and 102 billion won (10th place), respectively.
“Supply-demand concentration is intensifying again into the three top stocks in semiconductor-related sectors, including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Samsung Electro-Mechanics,” said Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities. “But since there are few sectors as attractive as semiconductors in terms of earnings and valuation, a strategy of expanding semiconductor weighting is reasonable in this situation.”