Korean Retail Investors Continue To Be Active Purchasers Of Overseas Listed ETFs In December

ETFGI, a leading independent research and consultancy firm covering trends in the global ETFs ecosystem, reported today that in the month of December, 26 of the top 50 overseas securities purchased by Korean retail investors were ETFs listed in the United States and Japan. The number of ETFs on the list is down by 2 from 28 in November, down by 5 from 31 in October and down by 1 from 27 in September* (All dollar values in USD unless otherwise noted)

Highlights

• 26 of the top 50 overseas securities purchased by Korean retail investors were ETFs listed in the United States and Japan
• Fourteen of the twenty-six ETFs provide leverage or inverse exposure.
• The largest purchase was US$1.06 Bn of the Direxion Daily Semiconductors Bull 3X SHS ETF listed in the US.

Top 10 overseas ETF purchased in December 2023

  Source, Korea Securities Depository

The ETF industry in South Korea had 1,190 ETFs, with assets of $105 Bn, from 37 providers listed on the Korea Exchange at the end of December 2023. According to data from ETFGI, 27.5 percent of the ETF provide leverage or inverse exposure which account for 12.4% of the assets in the ETF industry in South Korea.

Looking at the global ETFs industry leverage and inverse ETFs account for 9.90% of the 11,869 products but only US$133.13 Bn of the US$11.63 trillion in assets under management at the end of December 2023.

ETFs industry South Korean asset growth as of the end of December