00:00Q.S.E.A.S.E.A.F.
00:03You're listening to AI Prism, from Seoul Economic Daily.
00:06If you're holding Samsung or SK Hynix, here's a number that might surprise you.
00:11Micron is up almost 12% since late August.
00:15Samsung gained less than 1%.
00:18Foreign investors have sold more than $22 trillion of those two stocks in just six weeks.
00:24Meanwhile, a new U.S. ETF trend is picking off exactly the kind of cash-rich companies
00:30most Korean portfolios are missing.
00:33And one market research call says robot demand could multiply the memory chip market by 2030.
00:39It's Monday, October 12.
00:41Let's look at what this means for retail investors in Korea.
00:45Global chip stocks have rallied hard since late August on AI-driven demand.
00:50But Korea's two biggest chipmakers have barely moved.
00:53Heavy foreign selling is the main reason, even as both companies post strong underlying
00:58earnings.
01:00At the same time, a newer ETF category built around corporate cash flow, not dividends,
01:05is gaining real traction in the U.S.
01:08And it's barely registered with Korean retail investors yet.
01:12Here's what the numbers show.
01:13Samsung rose just 0.77 percent and SK Hynix 0.43 percent between August 31 and October 8,
01:22while Micron climbed 11.9 percent and TSMC's U.S. shares gained 12.55 percent over the same
01:30stretch.
01:31Foreign investors net sold 15.99 trillion won of SK Hynix and 6.13 trillion won of Samsung
01:39in that window, a combined 22.1 trillion won, or roughly 16.5 billion dollars.
01:47That's pushed SK Hynix's foreign ownership down to 49.59 percent and Samsung's to 46.38 percent,
01:55its lowest level since January 2008.
01:59Samsung still posted a preliminary 107.4 trillion won operating profit for the third quarter, roughly
02:0680 billion dollars.
02:08And analysts expect SK Hynix's profitability to keep improving, too.
02:12Counterpoint Research projects DRAM demand from humanoid robots to jump 20-fold by 2030,
02:18from 8,300 terabits this year to 172,000 terabits.
02:24SK Hynix is already co-developing next-generation robot memory with NVIDIA, while Samsung has stood
02:30up a dedicated robotics business unit.
02:33So, what does this mean for retail investors holding these names?
02:36Earlier, we said Samsung and SK Hynix barely moved while Micron jumped.
02:42Here's what that actually means for you.
02:44The underperformance looks like foreign positioning, not weaker fundamentals, since both companies'
02:50earnings outlook remains intact.
02:52Watch foreign ownership levels into the rest of this month's earnings releases.
02:56Stabilization there, rather than these multi-year lows, would signal that the selling pressure
03:01is easing.
03:02And watch how the cash flow ETF trend and the robot memory story develop.
03:07Both point to where global capital is rotating next, even if Korea's own version of that trade
03:12is still tiny.
03:14That's today's AI Prism.
03:16Retail investors.
03:17This episode was produced with AI Assistants, based on Seoul Economic Daily Reporting, and reviewed
03:23by a human editor.
03:24A.I.
03:25Prism is a Juan Ifra Award-winning series.
03:28We'll be back tomorrow.
03:29You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
03:33Music.
03:34Music.
