Rising and Retreating! Global Investors Withdraw Heavily from South Korean Stock Market, 22 Billion Has Flowed Out in May

The Korean stock market has delivered a world-leading performance this year, yet foreign capital is withdrawing at a record pace.

According to data disclosed by The Kobeissi Letter on May 21, foreign investors have sold a net $22 billion of Korean stocks so far in May. If this rate continues until the end of the month, it will set a new record for monthly foreign outflows.

From the beginning of the year until now, overseas investors have cumulatively offloaded about $60 billion worth of KOSPI component stocks, also on track to refresh the record for the largest annual net selling.

The sell-off has been highly concentrated in leading semiconductor companies. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are the main targets for foreign investors' reduction, with SK Hynix alone seeing approximately $20 billion sold by foreigners since the start of the year, and nearly $12 billion just in May.

Since November 2025, the cumulative net outflow from SK Hynix by foreign investors has reached about $26.7 billion.

The scale of this capital flight has drawn special attention, because foreign investors play a pivotal role in the Korean market—they account for about 39% of KOSPI’s total market capitalization.

Analysis points out that, such large-scale, sustained reductions mean that foreign capital is systematically compressing its exposure to Korean equity assets, rather than merely making structural portfolio adjustments.

It is noteworthy that this sell-off is occurring against the backdrop of strong overall performance in the Korean stock market. This "rising market, withdrawing capital" divergence reflects the deep caution foreign investors currently have towards the Korean market outlook.