SpaceX draws US$800 million from South Korean investors on trading debut

[SEOUL] South Korean retail investors snapped up almost US$800 million of SpaceX shares on the stock’s first day of trading, underscoring strong demand for Elon Musk’s company after local investors were shut out from the world’s largest initial public offering.

With a single day net purchase worth US$796 million on SpaceX’s first trading day on Friday (Jun 12), the rocket and artificial intelligence company has become the most popular US stock among the more than 14 million individual investors based in South Korea, based on Korea Securities Depository data.

The one-day total was bigger than the cumulative net purchases of any other US equities in past three months, data showed.

Global investor demand for SpaceX shares has remained strong, pushing the stock 49 per cent higher since its listing. The surge has boosted the company’s market value to US$2.65 trillion, surpassing Amazon’s by roughly US$8 billion.

Unlike Japan and Australia, South Korea offered no access to retail investors to directly buy shares in SpaceX during its IPO.

Instead, Mirae Asset Securities, one of the IPO’s underwriters, had offered access to the stock to select investors in the IPO. But it ultimately received no shares.

The Financial Supervisory Service, South Korea’s financial watchdog, has since expanded an inspection of the brokerage to examine its failure to secure SpaceX shares in the IPO.

Musk has commanded fans in the Asian nation for years. South Korean retail investors are among the key shareholders in Tesla as they collectively hold US$25.9 billion worth in the US electric-vehicle maker as at Jun 15, based on depository data. 

An exchange-traded fund that invests in SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technology Corp, has also proved popular among South Korean retail investors with a net inflow of US$301 million over the past month, the depository data showed. 

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Micron Technology and an ETF tracking the Nasdaq 100 index ranked as the second and third-most popular US stocks among Korean mom-and-pop investors in the three months until Jun 12, data showed.

They attracted net inflows of US$748 million and US$696 million, respectively. BLOOMBERG