Roundhill’s DRAM fund launched on April 2 and holds Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as its top two positions
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. (Photo courtesy of techovedas.com)
A small US asset management firm has listed on the American market an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that invests half of its total assets in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, drawing an unusually large influx of capital that has stunned Wall Street.
According to market research firm FactSet on April 22 (local time), the Roundhill Memory ETF (ticker: DRAM), a memory sector thematic fund listed on the New York Stock Exchange, recorded net inflows of $1.11 billion from the start of the month through April 21.
Launched on the New York Stock Exchange on April 2 by Roundhill, a small US asset management firm, the ETF saw its total assets under management surpass $1 billion on April 17 just two weeks after its debut, driven by a surge in capital inflows and rising prices among its holdings.
The ETF’s total assets under management, which stood at just $250,000 at the time of listing, had ballooned rapidly to $1.22 billion as of April 21.
The ETF introduced by Roundhill is a thematic fund investing in global memory chip companies. In its fund prospectus, Roundhill described the DRAM ETF as “the world’s first memory stock ETF.”
The fund consists of 11 holdings, with its top two positions as of April 21 being SK Hynix (26.9%) and Samsung Electronics (23.4%), together accounting for more than half of the portfolio.
The third-largest holding was Micron Technology, a US-based memory chip manufacturer, at 20.9%.
Wall Street has reacted with notable surprise, observing that it is highly unusual for a thematic ETF launched by a small asset manager with little promotion to attract fresh capital at such a rapid pace.
Eric Balchunas, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the DRAM ETF had put up “crazy volume for a new fund” and called it “the most underrated AI play.”
ETF information platform ETF.com said it had “showed a remarkable run as a niche product” and called it “one of the smartest products launched by a small to mid-sized asset manager this year.”
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) also weighed in on the ETF’s rapid growth, describing it as “rare for any ETF, and an unprecedented achievement for a small asset manager.”
According to ETF.com, while memory stocks are among the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two of the three major producers of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), are listed exclusively on the Korean market and have not been included in major US semiconductor funds.
As a result, individual investors outside of Korea have had difficulty gaining direct exposure to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Analysts identified the fund’s ability to deliver effective investment exposure to both companies through a single US-listed product as the key driver behind its remarkable success.
Yoon Young-sil
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