International funds are dumping Samsung Electronics shares at a pace not seen in almost two decades.
Fresh figures published by the Korea Exchange show foreign equity ownership in the company slid to 46.37 percent this week. That marks the lowest overseas holding ratio recorded for the Korean tech giant since July 2009.
The steady pullout has unfolded across the entire calendar year. International funds held 52.4 percent of the firm when trading began in January. That stake broke beneath the 50 percent threshold during March, drifted down to 48 percent by May, and continued to drop throughout late summer.
What makes the sell-off striking is the timing. Samsung stock touched fresh all-time highs earlier this year, pushed upward by an aggressive memory chip supercycle that has inflated DRAM and NAND contract rates. Analysts project the company will generate upwards of $80 billion in operating profit for the current quarter alone, with projections pointing even higher for subsequent quarters as hardware buyers pay top dollar for server components.
Yet institutional capital from abroad has treated the rally as an exit ramp.
Market watchers point to two separate pressures driving the exit. First, broader turbulence across South Korean equities spooked international portfolios earlier in the year, prompting swift profit-taking. Second, big investment funds have actively restructured their artificial intelligence bets, shifting capital allocations across global hardware names rather than concentrating risk in East Asia.
Local buyers are the ones keeping the floor stable. Domestic institutional and retail traders in South Korea have absorbed the flood of paper offloaded by departing funds, encouraged by the stellar quarterly earnings trajectory. While foreign managers take their chips off the table, local accounts are banking on the semiconductor division to keep setting records.
The selloff leaves overseas holdings at a generational low point, but Samsung shows zero signs of cooling off operational spending. If memory prices sustain their climb through the winter, incoming quarterly earnings filings will test whether foreign funds were smart to cash out or simply left money behind.
TBFiled by The Tech Business Desk
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