SEOUL: South Korean retail investors snapped up almost US$800mil 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 (IPO).
With a single day net purchase worth US$796mil on SpaceX’s first trading day last Friday, the rocket and artificial intelligence company has become the most popular US stocks among the more than 14 million individual investors based in South Korea, according to 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% higher since its listing. The surge has boosted the company’s market value to US$2.65 trillion, surpassing Amazon’s by roughly US$8bil.
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 Co, 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. — Bloomberg
