Signage for Palantir is seen during the Association of the United States Army annual meeting and exposition at a convention center in Washington, Oct. 14. Reuters-Yonhap
KOSPI market cap drops below $1.4 trillion, Kosdaq reaches a two-year low
By Lee Yeon-woo
Retail investors in Korea are shifting their focus in the U.S. stock market from NVIDIA to Palantir Technologies as strong performances in U.S. equities continue to attract interest.
With Korea's domestic stock market struggling to recover in the wake of martial law, overseas investments are expected to remain a popular choice for Korean investors.
According to the Korea Securities Depository, as of Thursday, retail investors trading in the U.S. stock market net purchased $243.2 million worth of Palantir Technologies shares over the past month. This amount ranked second in net purchases, trailing only Tesla at $332.9 million.
The 2X ETHER ETF, which offers 2x leverage on Ethereum, and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, a leading U.S. dividend exchange-traded fund, followed with $176.9 million and $166.6 million, respectively.
Palantir Technologies has accelerated its growth by providing software to public sector organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. Amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom on Wall Street, the AI data analytics company is also experiencing a surge in private-sector orders, contributing to significant revenue growth.
In the third quarter of this year, the company reported $725.5 million in revenue, marking a 30 percent year-over-year increase. It also achieved a record-breaking net income of $144 million, the highest since its inception.
These strong results have driven Palantir's stock price to soar by over 300 percent this year alone, reaching $70.96 earlier this week.
The company has gained additional momentum due to its association with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has been nominated to lead the Department of Government Efficiency under the second Trump administration. Its CEO, Peter Thiel, is known for co-founding PayPal alongside Musk.
Palantir Technologies is reportedly involved in Ukraine's development of AI-powered drones. With Musk recently criticizing F-35 builders as "idiots" and stating that the future is drone warfare, market attention further strengthened. CNBC’s Mad Money host Jim Cramer commented last month that Musk has been "responsible" for driving Palantir's stock rally.
Meanwhile, Koreans’ enthusiasm for U.S. stock market investments is expected to persist as they outperform their domestic counterparts.
On Wednesday (local time), all three major U.S. indices closed at record highs, driven by the strong performance of tech stocks. Tesla also set a new one-year high on Thursday at $375.41.
In contrast, Korea's KOSPI fell to 2,428.16 on Friday in the wake of martial law, with its market capitalization dropping below 2,000 trillion won ($1.4 trillion). The secondary Kosdaq index reached a two-year low.
Data from the Bank of Korea showed that Korean retail and institutional investors earned $33 billion in profits from overseas stock and fund investments in the third quarter, purchasing a total of $13.7 billion. Conversely, foreign investors bought $5.2 billion worth of Korean stocks but incurred losses totaling $31.9 billion.
English (United States) ·