'SOL Global DRAM Semiconductor Plus' Ranks No. 1 in First-Day Net Buying by Individual Investors Among Semiconductor ETFs Listed in Second Half of Year

Net purchases of approximately KRW 5.8 billion by individual investors
KRW 11 billion including retirement pension accounts

Shinhan Asset Management said on October 8 that SOL Global DRAM Semiconductor Plus ranked first in net purchases by individual investors on its listing day among semiconductor exchange-traded funds (ETFs) newly listed in the second half of this year.

According to the Korea Exchange, individual investors made net purchases of approximately KRW 5.8 billion in SOL Global DRAM Semiconductor Plus on the day before the announcement, its listing day. This was the largest amount of net purchases by individual investors on the first day of trading among the eight semiconductor ETFs newly listed on the domestic stock market in the second half of this year. Shinhan Asset Management said that including purchases made through retirement pension accounts, approximately KRW 11 billion flowed into the fund.

SOL Global DRAM Semiconductor Plus focuses its investments on leading global DRAM semiconductor companies: Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and U.S.-based Micron. It expands into global markets the domestic semiconductor investment strategy of SOL AI Semiconductor TOP 2 Plus, launched by Shinhan Asset Management in the first half of this year. The ETF brings together memory manufacturers and storage and equipment companies from South Korea, the United States, and Japan.

As the AI industry grows, the role of memory semiconductors is also expanding. Rapidly processing the data needed to train and run inference with AI models requires not only greater computing power but also higher performance from the memory and storage devices that supply the data. Accordingly, investor interest is expanding to include high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DRAM, as well as data center SSDs and high-capacity HDDs.

The portfolio consists of 10 holdings. At each periodic rebalancing, the underlying index is designed to allocate a 25% weight each to Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and Micron. It also includes NAND manufacturers Sandisk and Kioxia; data storage companies Seagate and Western Digital; and semiconductor equipment companies Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA.

"One advantage is that investors can invest in key global memory companies, including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and Micron, through pension savings and retirement pension DC and IRP accounts," said Kim Jeonghyun, head of Shinhan Asset Management's ETF Business Group. "This will be a useful investment vehicle for pension investors who cannot directly hold overseas-listed ETFs, allowing them to participate in the medium- to long-term growth of the global memory industry."

Meanwhile, Shinhan Asset Management is holding a net-purchase verification event through October 30 to mark the listing of the SOL Global DRAM Semiconductor Plus ETF. Details about the event and prizes are available on the SOL ETF blog.

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