Despite the “deep shock” that shook the U.S. stock market during the Lunar New Year holiday closure,..

Despite the “deep shock” that shook the U.S. stock market during the Lunar New Year holiday closure, Seo Hak-ant (domestic investors investing in overseas stock markets) rather bought Nvidia in large numbers. It is interpreted that the emergence of low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) has led to a low-priced purchase as the stock price of Nvidia, the AI semiconductor leader, has increased fluctuations.

According to the Korea Securities Depository Securities Information Portal Savro on the 2nd, Nvidia was the top net buyer of Seohak ants from the 29th to the 30th of last month (as of the settlement date), which was worth 318.88 million dollars (464 billion won).

The exchange-traded fund (ETF), which doubles Nvidia’s daily stock price return, also attracted buying. During the same period, “GranitShares Twice Long Nvidia Daily” (NVDL) ranked third with net purchases of West Hak ants at $283 million (41.9 billion won). There was a big gap with Tesla ($69.64 million, 101.3 billion won), which ranked fourth in net purchases.

Seohak ants responded by buying Nvidia in unison as it plunged. Nvidia shares plunged 16.97% on the 27th (local time) in the aftermath of the new AI model unveiled by Chinese AI startup Dipsyk. Concerns that Nvidia’s expensive chips may become unnecessary if DeepSeek’s method of developing cheap AI models spreads have dragged down the stock price.

Compared to the focus on Tesla at the beginning of the year, the focus of buying on Nvidia seems to be a rather unusual move. From the beginning of last month until the day before Nvidia’s stock price plunged, Tesla was the most net buyers by domestic investors. Net purchases amounted to $2.26814 (KRW 3.2985 trillion) during the period.

Nvidia maintains the second place in the amount of money stored by Seohak ants. According to the Korea Securities Depository, as of the 29th of last month, NVIDIA shares held by domestic investors amounted to $11.2 billion (about 16 trillion won), which is half of Tesla shares ($23.2 billion, about 33 trillion won).

Stock markets predicted that stock prices would rebound in the short term due to strong Nvidia performance, but mid- to long-term uncertainties would expand. Nvidia will release its performance on the 26th.

Park Yoo-ak, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, said, “The free-to-play ‘Depsyk R1’ could cause profitability concerns for the overall open AI ecosystem,” adding, “There may be a short-term rebound in Nvidia shares, but a conservative approach is desirable in the mid- to long-term.”

Lee Seung-woo, a researcher at Eugene Investment & Securities, said, “The competition to build AI infrastructure centered on Nvidia will not change in a short period of time,” but pointed out, “It seems hard to deny that a small ball launched by Dipsyk can create a crack in the framework of competition to build AI infrastructure.”