Korean Retail Investors Buy $2.2 Billion of U.S. Stocks as KOSPI Falls

Korean retail investors bought a net $2.2 billion of U.S. stocks over Nov. 2–6, 2026, while the KOSPI, Seoul's main index, fell 11.71% over the same trading week. The figure comes from the Korea Securities Depository (KSD), which published it on Nov. 7, and the Korea Economic Daily put it at ₩2.98 trillion.

Most of that money went into one product. About 74% of it, $1.63 billion, bought SOXL, a U.S. fund that seeks three times the daily return of a chip stock index, in a week when U.S. chip stocks had their worst day since March 2020.

Koreans call these investors seohak gaemi, a nickname for local retail investors who buy U.S. stocks; gaemi, or ants, is slang for small investors. Their buying matters beyond Wall Street, because Korean officials have linked it to the weakness of the won.

A Week Bigger Than August

The week's purchases were larger than all of August 2026, when retail investors bought a net $1.96 billion of U.S. stocks, and more than double September's $1.00 billion, the Korea Economic Daily reported. They also equaled about 40% of October's total, the largest monthly net purchase in 11 months.

The flow has swung with policy and the market. Retail investors were net sellers of U.S. stocks in April and May 2026, when a government program to bring money back to Korean shares was in force, and turned net buyers again in June. The depository's figures, as reported by the newspaper, show the swing.

For scale, Korean individuals held $211.22 billion of overseas stocks at the end of March 2026, the Korea Herald reported, citing depository data.

The money did not simply leave Korea. Individuals bought a net ₩4.2 trillion ($3.1 billion) of KOSPI shares over the same days, the Korea Economic Daily reported, more than the ₩2.98 trillion ($2.2 billion) they put into U.S. stocks.

Cash waiting at brokerages has thinned, however. Investor deposits stood at ₩88.5 trillion ($65.3 billion) on Nov. 5 and have stayed below ₩100 trillion ($73.7 billion) since Oct. 13, according to Korea Financial Investment Association data cited by the newspaper. Margin loans, money borrowed from brokers to buy shares, totaled ₩28.8 trillion ($21.2 billion).

Three Times the Daily Move

SOXL is the ticker of the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares. The fund seeks 300% of the daily performance of the NYSE Semiconductor Index, before fees and expenses, according to its February 2025 summary prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A 1% daily rise in the index should lift the fund about 3%, and a 1% fall should cut it about 3%.

Korean investors bought $1.63 billion of SOXL in the Nov. 2–6 data, more than 70% of their U.S. purchases, the Korea Economic Daily reported. Alphabet drew $497 million, and ProShares UltraPro QQQ, a fund that tracks three times the daily return of the Nasdaq 100, drew $220 million.

The same week, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, a widely watched chip benchmark, fell 12.25% on Nov. 5, its steepest drop since March 2020, the Seoul Economic Daily reported. SOXL fell 38.71% that day, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily. A fund that loses 38.71% has to gain about 63% to get back to where it started.

The losses have built up over weeks. Between Oct. 1 and Nov. 5, Korean investors bought a net $4.28 billion of SOXL, or ₩5.79 trillion by the Seoul Economic Daily's conversion, while its price fell 73.41% to $40.87 from $153.69, the newspaper reported, citing depository data.

Their SOXL holdings shrank to $4.77 billion at the end of October from $5.69 billion on Sept. 30, even though nearly $3 billion flowed in during October. The fund's daily reset makes losses compound when prices swing, the newspaper explained.

An index that falls 10% one day and rises 10% the next ends 1% lower. A fund that triples those moves falls 30% and then rises 30%, leaving 91% of the original stake. The prospectus itself warns that "the return for investors that invest for periods longer or shorter than a trading day should not be expected to be 300% of the performance of the Index for the period."

Korean investors made the same bet in October. In trades from Oct. 8 to Oct. 14, they bought $2.58 billion of SOXL, about ₩3.4 trillion, which exceeded their $2.52 billion of total U.S. net purchases, Money Today reported on Oct. 19. In other words, they were net sellers of all other U.S. stocks combined.

SOXL fell 30.4% over those days and another 15.3% on Oct. 15 and Oct. 16, the newspaper reported. Leveraged funds had already hurt Korean investors: in a July 2026 market commentary, Citi estimated that Korean retail investors had lost about $38.7 billion, or ₩58 trillion, on leveraged ETFs over the month to late July, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

"I knew leverage itself was high-risk, but it's disheartening to see chips, which I'd expected to keep climbing steadily, fall like this," said a 32-year-old SOXL investor surnamed Lee, quoted by the Korea JoongAng Daily on Nov. 6.

"Considering the direction of AI data center investment, the current extent of the share price decline and the market's price reaction are somewhat excessive," said Lee Jin-woo, head of the research center at Meritz Securities, according to the same newspaper.

The Won Connection

The exchange rate helped set up the trade. On July 1, 2026, the won closed at 1,554.9 per dollar in Seoul, its weakest close since March 2009, the Korea Times reported. By early November it had strengthened to the mid-1,300s, which the Korea Economic Daily cited as one reason for the buying, since a stronger won makes U.S. shares cheaper for Korean investors.

The rout reversed part of that move. The won weakened by 14.5 won to 1,356.6 per dollar at the 3:30 p.m. close in Seoul on Nov. 6, its biggest daily move in six months, as foreign investors sold Korean shares, the Seoul Economic Daily reported. This article converts won at that rate.

"This surge in the exchange rate can be seen as a reaction largely to political issues rather than to the dollar's value, U.S. Treasury yields or oil prices," said Lee Min-hyuk, an economist at KB Kookmin Bank, according to the Seoul Economic Daily.

Seoul has tried to bring the money home. Officials have linked retail buying of U.S. stocks to the won's weakness, the Korea Herald reported, and on March 23, 2026, the government launched Reshoring Investment Accounts. Investors who sell overseas shares and keep the proceeds in Korean stocks for more than a year get a full or partial exemption from capital gains tax, depending on when they sell.

The exemption matters because Korea taxes individuals' gains on overseas stocks at 22% above ₩2.5 million ($1,843), the Herald noted. Its pull faded quickly, judging by the return to net buying of U.S. stocks in June.

The currency cuts both ways for Korean holders. A weaker won raises the won value of their U.S. shares, so the won's 1.1% fall on Nov. 6 offset only a small part of their losses in chip funds. Foreign investors face the mirror image with Korean shares, as explained in our guide to buying Korean stocks from abroad.

"Risk-off sentiment has generally prevailed since the U.S. midterm elections, and the exchange rate could face upward pressure for some time on further outflows of foreign equity funds," said Lee Young-hwa, an economist at Busan Bank, according to the Seoul Economic Daily. A higher rate means a weaker won. Some in the market said the rate could climb to around 1,380 per dollar by the end of 2026 if unease over chip stocks persists, the newspaper added.

Korea context: The depository's tallies run on settlement dates, which fall about two days after the trade. In its Oct. 19 report, Money Today matched trades made on Oct. 8–14 with settlement dates of Oct. 12–16. On the same lag, the Nov. 2–6 figure would mostly reflect orders placed before SOXL's 38.71% drop on Nov. 5, so the next weekly data will show how investors responded to the drop itself.

What to Watch

The depository's next weekly figures will show whether Korean investors kept buying SOXL after its Nov. 5 drop or cut back, and whether its share of their U.S. purchases stays above 70%.

The won is the second signal. A move toward 1,380 per dollar would lift the won value of existing U.S. holdings but raise the cost of new purchases.

The third is cash at home. Investor deposits below ₩100 trillion ($73.7 billion) leave less money ready to flow back into Korean stocks if the market steadies.

Taken together, Korean retail investors bought both U.S. and Korean shares during the slide, but most of their U.S. money went into a leveraged bet on a chip rebound. The next test comes when trading resumes in Seoul on Nov. 9, 2026.