Newly listed stocks that debuted on Korea's initial public offering (IPO) market this year continue to post weak share performance. As market funds concentrated on large-cap artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor stocks, nearly half of the newly listed shares fell below their offering prices. Even stocks that recorded high returns immediately after listing have recently given back their gains, with newly listed shares broadly losing investor attention.
According to the Korea Exchange on Wednesday, among the 14 stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets this year, 6 traded below their offering prices based on Friday's closing price. Hanpass closed at 8,690 won, 54.3% below its offering price of 19,000 won, while Esteem ended at 5,420 won, down 36.2% from its offering price of 8,500 won. K Bank also traded at 5,570 won, 32.9% below its offering price of 8,300 won. In addition, Chaevi (-26.7%), Inventera (-24.1%), and Polled (-13.5%) traded below their offering prices. This means nearly half of this year's listed companies are trading below their offering prices.
Stocks trading above their offering prices are in a similar situation. Five stocks, including Axbis, Kanaph Therapeutics, IMBiologics, Mezoo, and Dukyang Energen, have seen their share prices fall to around the offering price level. Axbis, whose offering price was 11,500 won, rose to 46,000 won on its first day of trading, but its Friday closing price stood at 15,590 won, falling back to the mid-10,000 won range. IMBiologics also climbed to 104,000 won on its first day, far surpassing its offering price of 26,000 won, but recently its share price fell to 27,800 won, similar to the offering price. Kanaph Therapeutics and Mezoo have also seen their share prices fall significantly from their post-listing highs. Investors who were swayed by the surge in the early days of listing face inevitable substantial losses.
By contrast, the stocks maintaining significant gains over their offering prices are effectively limited to Recens Medical, Cosmo Robotics, and MakinaRocks. Recens Medical is trading 84.5% above its offering price, and MakinaRocks 78.0% higher. Cosmo Robotics recorded the highest return, with its share price rising from an offering price of 6,000 won to 28,450 won as of Friday, a gain of 374.2%. Only AI and robotics companies managed to hold up.
While these IPO stocks struggled, market funds concentrated on large-cap semiconductor stocks. Samsung Electronics rose 156% from 128,500 won at the start of the year to 329,000 won on Friday, while SK hynix surged 205.7% over the same period, from 677,000 won to 2.07 million won. This was driven by retail investors, who net-purchased 35.0206 trillion won of Samsung Electronics and 28.0102 trillion won of SK hynix from the start of the year through Friday. During this period, retail investors net-purchased a total of 72.0745 trillion won on the KOSPI market, of which 63.0308 trillion won (87%) was concentrated in Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. On the KOSDAQ market, they net-sold 817.8 billion won.
In addition, since single-stock leverage exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were listed on the 27th of last month, the concentration of funds into the two stocks has intensified further. Analysts say that as a stronger preference for large-cap stocks with proven earnings over growth potential takes hold in the market, there has been insufficient capital to flow into newly listed stocks. While expectations for growth industries such as AI and bio remain high, investors are focusing on large-cap semiconductor stocks with immediately confirmed earnings improvements rather than future value, the analysis explains.
"There was net inflow into ETFs with high exposure to large-cap stocks, such as the single-stock leverage ETFs for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, while net outflow appeared in semiconductor ETFs with high exposure to semiconductor materials, parts, and equipment," said Kim Yong-gu, a researcher at Yuanta Securities. "We have confirmed entry into a differentiation phase in which fund concentration is becoming even more focused on mega-cap stocks across the entire value chain."
