Korean retail investors have put a record 5.18 trillion won ($3.88 billion) into Mirae Asset Global Investments' Tiger US S&P500 exchange-traded fund this year, making it the first ETF listed in Korea to draw more than 5 trillion won from individuals in a single year, according to Korea Exchange data released by the asset manager on Oct. 29.

The figure matters for investors across Asia watching where retail money goes. Korean individuals favored funds holding domestic stocks in the first half of 2026, but the new data show a growing share of their cash heading to a plain U.S. index fund, even as the Kospi swings by several percent a day.

A record for a single Korean ETF

The 5.18 trillion won covers the period from January through Oct. 28, Korea JoongAng Daily reported. That is about 1.4 times the 3.64 trillion won the same fund drew in all of last year, which had been the previous annual record for any single ETF in Korea.

No other Korean-listed ETF has attracted more retail net buying this year, the asset manager said, a ranking that includes leveraged and inverse products. The fund, which listed on Aug. 7, 2020, tracks the S&P 500 and holds 21.2 trillion won in net assets. It also topped the retail net-buying table in 2024 and 2025.

Mirae Asset said the flows reflect demand for established ways to diversify. U.S. benchmark index ETFs have led retail net buying in the second half of the year, the company said.

Kim Sang-yool, head of the asset manager's global ETF management division, said Korean investors now treat U.S. benchmark indexes as a fundamental pillar of building wealth rather than just one option for investing overseas. He said the firm wants the fund to serve as a main product for retirement savings.

For investors elsewhere in Asia who buy U.S. index exposure, where a fund is domiciled affects how much of the dividend stream they keep. Capital Times has looked at how fund domicile changes what Asian investors keep.

Kospi whipsaws through earnings week

The record arrived during one of the most volatile weeks of the year for Korean shares.

On Oct. 28, the Kospi jumped more than 6% after SK hynix reported record quarterly earnings and announced additional shareholder returns. The next day it fell 1.24% to 5,937.66, slipping back below 6,000 after Samsung Electronics' third-quarter results came in slightly under analyst estimates and the company gave no update on its shareholder-return plan. Samsung shares lost 4.13% that day. (Capital Times covered Samsung's quarter in detail.)

On Oct. 30 the selling deepened. The Kospi dropped 206.92 points, or 3.48%, to 5,730.74, after touching an intraday low of 5,599.42, according to Yonhap. The Korea Exchange triggered a sell-side sidecar, which pauses program trading for five minutes, shortly after 10 a.m. Decliners outnumbered advancers 655 to 232.

The trigger came from Wall Street. Alphabet shares fell more than 12% after its third-quarter revenue missed expectations, reviving worries about returns on heavy AI spending, Yonhap reported. In Seoul, SK hynix fell 7.08% to 1.42 million won and Samsung Electronics slid 3.02% to 225,000 won. Kia dropped 11.73% after weaker-than-expected operating profit, and Hanwha Aerospace lost 8.42%.

Individuals keep buying as foreigners sell

Retail investors bought into both down days. Individuals were net buyers of 32 billion won of Kospi shares on Oct. 29 and 620.97 billion won on Oct. 30, while foreign investors sold a net 1.62 trillion won on the Friday, Yonhap data showed.

The foreign selling is not new. Offshore investors sold a net 19.1 trillion won ($14.3 billion) of Korean stocks in September, after net purchases of 344 billion won in August, according to the Financial Supervisory Service. Investors from Britain sold the most, 6.9 trillion won, followed by those from the United States at 3.9 trillion won. Foreigners held 34.8% of Korea's stock market capitalization at the end of September, the regulator said.

The swings have not translated into easy profits for the brokers that serve retail traders. Kiwoom Securities reported third-quarter net income of 238.6 billion won on Oct. 30, down 26% from a year earlier and well short of the 335.3 billion won analysts expected, according to a Yonhap Infomax survey. Operating income slipped 0.7% to 406.1 billion won, though revenue more than doubled to 6.93 trillion won.

At its current pace, the Tiger US S&P500 ETF would finish 2026 as the top Korean ETF for retail net buying for a third straight year. The next test for the Kospi comes when trading resumes on Monday, Nov. 2, after Friday's 3.48% fall.

This article is general information, not financial advice.