Korea Investment's ACE K Semiconductor TOP2+ ETF tops 200 billion won in retail net purchases

Korea Investment Trust Management said Tuesday that retail net purchases into its recently listed ACE K Semiconductor TOP2+ exchange-traded fund have surpassed 200 billion won ($130 million).

According to Korea Exchange, retail net purchases in the ACE K Semiconductor TOP2+ ETF totaled 210.2 billion won as of Monday. The ETF drew 115.7 billion won in retail net purchases on its listing day alone — June 23 — and crossed the 200 billion won threshold in just five trading days.

The ETF concentrates its investments in leading domestic companies at the forefront of the global AI semiconductor market. SK hynix and Samsung Electronics are included at a combined weighting of up to 50 percent, and SK Square has also been added to the portfolio to increase exposure to the flagship names. The three stocks together account for roughly 70 percent of the fund's holdings.

Another defining feature is a portfolio centered on substrate companies. Reflecting the view that connecting graphics processing units (GPUs) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) inside AI servers becomes increasingly critical as AI advances from inference toward agentic AI, about 30 percent of the fund is allocated to substrate-focused holdings.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics is the ETF's primary substrate-related holding, currently weighted at 17.93 percent, according to ETF CHECK. The fund also includes a range of other substrate-related names: GigaVis, Simtec, Korea Circuit, Taesung, Haesung DS and TLB.

Nam Yong-su, head of the ETF division at Korea Investment Trust Management, said that as AI continues to advance, memory chips have become a strategic asset determining AI performance and cost, while the technology to stably supply high power and organically connect GPUs and HBM has also grown in importance. "The ACE K Semiconductor TOP2+ ETF is a product that invests intensively in the key bottlenecks that matter most as AI develops," he said.

Korea Investment Trust Management has been actively developing new ETF products of late. On June 2, it listed the ACE High-Dividend Plus Covered Call Active ETF, which adds Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to a basket of high-dividend stocks. The fund incorporates Samsung Electronics and SK hynix on top of 20 high-dividend holdings.