Hedge Fund Positioning on Korea Invest Insights

The Rebound Case (S1): The Business Went Up, the Stocks Went Down, and the Forced Sellers Are Mostly Done

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 16:10:00 +0900

Our base case for the chip selloff is S1: a rebound under a hawkish Fed hold, at 50% (subjective, Oct 24). This post reads the market as if S1 is the path. It asks two questions. What does today look like through that lens? And if S1 plays out, in what order should things happen?

The short version: the business went up while the stocks went down. DDR5 spot prices rose 11.7% from Sep 16 to Oct 23, and Korea’s chip exports for Oct 1–20 were up 222.5% from a year earlier. Over the same weeks SK hynix fell 31.4% from its October closing high.¹² A gap that wide is what forced selling looks like, and the forced sellers are mostly done.

S1 is not a promise of a straight line up. It is a rebound with a shakeout first and a ceiling from rates. A companion post reads the same market through the credit-squeeze case (S2).

Five things to take away

Under S1 the October drop was a crowded long book being forced out, not a demand break. The earnings layer for 2026–27 got stronger while the stocks fell.
Most of the mechanical selling is done. Goldman’s model of CTA equity longs fell from about $125 billion to $39 billion, and foreign cash selling in Korea fell from KRW 27.0 trillion over Sep 24–Oct 15 to KRW 0.31 trillion over Oct 16–23.³⁴
S1 needs four things this week: SK hynix confirms 2027 contracts and a new buyback, Microsoft passes three of our four tests, Big Tech keeps capex up, and the Fed holds without hike language.
Expect the rebound in a specific order: the most-shorted neoclouds cover first, memory rises later on long re-buying, and in Korea foreign buying shows up in Samsung Electronics before SK hynix.
Rates set the ceiling. Futures put only about an 8% chance on an October hike but high odds on December, so S1 is a rebound with a lid.⁵

Prices are Oct 23 closes; Korean closes are final prints after the 20:00 KST extended session. Probabilities are our subjective estimates.

How today reads under S1

The business went up while the stocks went down

Every line on the left moved the right way in October. DDR5 16Gb spot averaged $61.27 on Oct 23, up from $54.83 on Sep 16.¹ Korea’s chip exports for the first 20 days of October reached $27.5 billion.² Consensus for Samsung’s 2027 operating profit rose to KRW 561 trillion at FnGuide, and Micron’s FY27 EPS consensus rose 12.8% in 30 days.⁶ TSMC kept its 2026 capex guide at $60–64 billion on Oct 15.⁷

Demand behind those numbers is still booked ahead. Amazon said in July that its 2027 capacity is largely reserved and that a good part of 2028 is reserved too.⁸ Samsung said five customers had signed long-term agreements, though its 60–70% allocation plan also counts deals not yet signed.⁹

Under S1, the market sold the durability of memory profits beyond 2027 and the cost of AI capital, not today’s demand. The 2026–27 layer is barely priced; the 2028 layer is heavily priced.

The forced sellers are mostly done

Three groups did most of the selling, and each has largely stopped.

Trend followers. Goldman’s model of CTA equity longs fell about 69% to roughly $39 billion in the week of Oct 16.³
Crowded fund managers. In BofA’s survey, the share calling semiconductors the most crowded trade fell from 82% in July to 45% in October.¹⁰
Foreign investors in Korea. They sold KRW 27.0 trillion of KOSPI cash equities from Sep 24 to Oct 15, then only KRW 0.31 trillion from Oct 16 to Oct 23. Samsung Electronics even saw foreign net buying of about 4.55 million shares in that second window.⁴

The Oct 22 drop also looked like positioning, not credit. SOX fell 6.7% that day, yet the equal-weight S&P 500 rose 0.7%, an investment-grade bond ETF rose 1.1% and the 10-year Treasury yield fell 17bp.¹¹ A credit event usually drags those down together.

There is one loaded spring left. Hedge funds still run gross leverage of about 312%, near a record.¹² If longs fall while shorts rise, they could be forced to cut once more. That is why S1 comes with a shakeout risk.

The stress sits at the weak end, not with memory buyers

S1 does not say credit is fine. It says the stress is concentrated. Investment-grade spreads are 89bp, still below our 100bp bear line, while the pressure sits with Oracle and the debt-funded neoclouds.¹³ Those borrowers matter for 2028 orders, not for the 2026–27 profits already under contract. The companion S2 post looks at what happens if that changes.

What S1 needs this week

Oct 28, SK hynix. Two things: a clear share of 2027 HBM4 volume under contract, and a new shareholder-return plan. Brokers expect funding of more than KRW 30 trillion.¹⁴ Company buybacks did much of the buying under the July rebound, and the last program ended on Oct 21; a new one would restore that bottom buyer.
Oct 29, Microsoft. Three of four tests: demand still exceeds supply; calendar 2026 capex is raised or the December quarter is at least the September quarter; leases signed but not yet started keep growing; Azure grows 45% or more. We put the odds near 42%.
Oct 29–30, Alphabet and Amazon. Capex held or raised, and memory price increases absorbed without cutting build plans.
Oct 29, FOMC. A hold without language that points to more hikes. Markets price only about an 8% chance of an October hike.⁵
Oct 30–Nov 7, the bond window. US high-yield spreads at 330bp or less with deals clearing. They were 340bp on Oct 22.¹³

How S1 would unfold

Step 1, Oct 28–30: earnings clear. The first day that splits the paths is Oct 29. If the tests above pass, hedges start to come off.

Step 2, Oct 29–Nov 4: the rebound window. The order matters. Short covering hits the most-shorted names first; neocloud shorts were about 20–26% of float.¹⁵ Memory stocks are not heavily shorted, so they rise later and more slowly, on long re-buying. In Korea we expect foreign buying to show up in Samsung Electronics first and in SK hynix after its results. The fingerprint to look for is retail selling while foreigners buy. On Jul 31, the day after the July low, foreigners bought KRW 7.24 trillion of KOSPI stocks while individuals sold KRW 8.28 trillion.¹⁶

Step 3, Oct 30–Nov 7: the bond window clears. Hyperscalers and their partners usually issue bonds after earnings. S1 needs those deals to clear without bigger concessions, with high-yield spreads back at 330bp or less and investment-grade at 85bp or less.

Step 4, Nov 3–10: rates set the ceiling. The midterms, October jobs (Nov 6) and October CPI (Nov 10) decide how far the rebound runs. With a December hike still priced, a 10-year yield near 5% caps valuations.

What the base rates say

History supports a rebound but warns about the path. Since 1994, after a day when SOX fell 6% or more (97 cases), the index was higher ten days later 63% of the time. In the 33 cases that looked like a crowding unwind, it was higher 64% of the time, but 58% saw another 5% drop first.¹⁷ Hedge funds’ AI net flows also sit at levels last seen near the April and July lows; SOX rose 38.7% and 13.7% over the next 21 sessions in those two cases, though two cases prove little.¹⁸

Korea needs a caveat. In 2025–26, after a KOSPI gain of 3% or more, the next 20 sessions averaged 0.0% and rose only 42% of the time. Rallies without foreign cash buying faded.¹⁷

So the S1 expectation is a rebound, likely after one more shakeout, led by the most-shorted names and capped by rates.

What ends S1

High-yield spreads at 350bp or more with failed deals. S1 turns into S2.
One Big Tech company cuts 2027 capex. That moves toward S3, the demand slowdown.
Inflation-type oil days. Brent above $110 while inflation gauges rise keeps the macro-shock case (S4) at 20% or higher.
Korea’s flow turns. Foreign cash selling of KRW 1 trillion or more in a day, or KRW 3 trillion over five sessions, together with futures buying.
The earnings layer cracks. An annual cut to next year’s memory consensus. Quarterly estimates for Samsung’s first two quarters of 2027 have already slipped about 2.6–2.7%, so this is worth watching.⁶

Our read

S1 is our base case because the layer that pays memory makers got stronger while the price fell, and the sellers who drove October look mostly spent. The weak spot in this reading is credit: the S1 gate of 330bp on high-yield spreads is not met today. If the bond window clears, the rebound case gets much stronger. If it fails, read the S2 post next.

Your turn

Do you buy the forced-selling story, or is the market seeing a demand break we are missing? Which S1 test do you think fails first: SK hynix’s buyback, Microsoft’s wording, or the bond window? Tell me in the comments. I will score this on Nov 6.

If this helped you think through the week, a like helps other investors find it.

Disclaimer: For research and information purposes only. Not investment advice. Names cited are for analytical illustration; readers should perform their own due diligence and consult licensed advisors before any investment decision.

TrendForce, DRAM spot price: DDR5 16Gb (2Gx8) 4800/5600 session average $61.267 on 2026-10-23 and $54.83 on 2026-09-16, from captured price tables. ↩︎ ↩︎
Korea Customs Service via Korea.kr, exports for Oct 1–20, 2026: semiconductors $27.516 billion, up 222.5% from a year earlier. Provisional data. ↩︎ ↩︎
Tickmill, summary of Goldman Sachs notes, 2026-10-20: CTA global equity longs from about $125 billion to $39 billion. Secondary summary of a paid note. ↩︎ ↩︎
Naver Finance investor-trend data (KRX based). Window totals are our sums of daily data; Samsung Electronics foreign net buying in shares from the same source. Rechecked on Oct 24. ↩︎ ↩︎
FXStreet, 2026-10-23, citing the CME FedWatch Tool: about an 8% chance of an October hike. December hike odds near 83% are from our market tracker as of Oct 23 (secondary). ↩︎ ↩︎
Consensus data compiled by FnGuide (Samsung 2027 operating profit KRW 554 trillion to 561 trillion as of Oct 14; 1Q27 −2.71% and 2Q27 −2.56% quarterly revisions as of Oct 5), with Kiwoom Securities at KRW 555 trillion; Micron FY27 EPS revision over 30 days. Secondary data. ↩︎ ↩︎
TSMC third-quarter 2026 earnings call, 2026-10-15: 2026 capital budget kept at $60–64 billion. ↩︎
Amazon second-quarter 2026 earnings call, 2026-07-30. ↩︎
Samsung Electronics second-quarter 2026 earnings call, 2026-07-30. The 60–70% allocation plan includes agreements not yet signed. ↩︎
Mace News, BofA Global Fund Manager Survey for October, 2026-10-13. Secondary summary. ↩︎
Index and ETF closes for 2026-10-22 from Yahoo Finance, as summarized by StockTitan; 10-year Treasury yield from FRED DGS10, 5.13% on Oct 21 and 4.96% on Oct 22. ↩︎
Same Tickmill summary, 2026-10-20: gross leverage 311.7% and net 72.7% for the week of Oct 16. Secondary. ↩︎
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: ICE BofA US High Yield OAS 3.40% and US Corporate (IG) OAS 0.89% on 2026-10-22, the latest available on Oct 24. ↩︎ ↩︎
Money Today, 2026-10-19, citing securities-industry expectations. The earlier KRW 40 trillion program is in the SK hynix newsroom. ↩︎
Reuters, short sellers and neoclouds, 2026-10-22, citing ORTEX data. ↩︎
Naver Finance investor-trend data for 2026-07-31: foreigners +KRW 7,241.0 billion, individuals −KRW 8,284.0 billion in KOSPI. ↩︎
Our calculation from daily closes: SOX (Yahoo Finance, 1994 onward) and KOSPI (2025–2026). The crowding subset is our classification. Past patterns are base rates, not forecasts. ↩︎ ↩︎
Goldman Sachs prime brokerage AI net-flow chart as shared in market commentary (read from the chart; estimate). Two cases only. ↩︎

October's Chip Crash Was a Long Unwind, Not a Short Attack

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 14:30:00 +0900

From its October closing high to Friday’s close, the S&P 500 lost 2.5%. Over the same stretch the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) fell 18.4%, SK hynix 31.4% and CoreWeave 40.9%. This was not a market-wide panic. One trade came apart: the AI chain.

How it came apart matters more than how far. Hedge funds did not build a big new short against memory or Korea. They sold the longs they already owned, then hedged what they kept with index shorts. In Korea, foreign investors sold KRW 27.0 trillion of cash equities between Sept 24 and Oct 15 while they bought KOSPI 200 futures.

That shape decides what comes next. A book that is long memory and short the index is exposed to correlation more than to direction. The next two weeks, from SK hynix’s results on Oct 28 to Microsoft’s capex wording and the Fed, will show whether it unwinds as a short squeeze or as one more round of forced selling. Here is the map.

Five things to take away

Only the AI chain fell. The S&P 500 dropped 2.5% while SOX dropped 18.4%. Memory longs and neocloud shorts both fell hard, so many funds lost on both sides at once.
AI-specific news lit the fire and hedge-fund long sales spread it. Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data showed AI long sales running at 3.5 times short sales in the week to Oct 14.
The book left behind is a hedged crowd: long whoever gets paid by AI, short the index and the debt-funded builders. Its weak point is correlation. If longs fall while shorts rise, the loss is about 3.3 times larger than when both fall together.
Korea fell on foreign selling of cash equities, not on index shorts. A lasting rebound needs foreigners to buy Samsung Electronics and SK hynix shares again, not just to cover futures.
Our base case (50%, subjective) is a short cover once the event cluster passes. One more leg down has a combined 35%.

Prices are Oct 23 closes. Korean closes are the final prints after the extended session ends at 20:00 KST. Probabilities are our subjective estimates as of Oct 23. This is analysis, not a trading instruction.

Only the AI chain fell, and both sides of the book fell with it

The first question is simple: did the market fall, or did one trade fall? Blue bars are names hedge funds typically hold long. Orange bars are what they use as hedges or short.

The broad index barely moved while every AI-linked name fell by a fifth or more. The memory longs and the neocloud shorts went down together, which is the painful case for a long/short book. Over the same weeks DRAM spot prices rose. The closes behind the chart are below.¹

Name	Role in the book	October closing high	Oct 23 close	Change
S&P 500	Index hedge	Oct 6: 7,818.93	7,623.68	−2.5%
SOX	Index hedge	Oct 6: 13,217.82	10,779.46	−18.4%
Micron	Long	Oct 1: $1,097.39	$877.55	−20.0%
KOSPI	Index hedge	Oct 2: 7,003.74	5,550.30	−20.8%
Samsung Electronics	Long	Oct 2: KRW 276,000	KRW 213,500	−22.6%
SK hynix	Long	Oct 2: KRW 1,842,000	KRW 1,263,000	−31.4%
CoreWeave	Debt-funded short	Oct 6: $91.72	$54.24	−40.9%

AI news lit the fire; hedge-fund long sales spread it

The next question is cause. The chain below runs from the trigger to the buyers who absorbed the supply.

The trigger was news specific to AI. Lam Research and Meta reported on Oct 21 U.S. time, and the Oct 22 drop followed. Lam guided the December quarter to $8.6 billion, plus or minus $0.4 billion, slightly above consensus, yet the stock fell about 7% after hours.² We read that guidance as a supply ceiling, not weaker demand. Meta raised the low end of its 2026 capital spending range to $135 billion to $145 billion, kept the top and gave no 2027 number.³ Credit added a funding scare: Oracle’s five-year CDS was near 315bp and CoreWeave’s 2032 notes yielded about 14.9% on Oct 19.⁴

Hedge funds turned that news into a rout. In Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data, AI long sales ran at 3.5 times short sales over Oct 8 to 14.⁵ Tech de-grossing in the five sessions to Oct 15 was the largest since the data began in 2016.⁶ In the week of Oct 16, gross leverage stood at 311.7% and net leverage at 72.7%.⁷ Funds kept their gross exposure and cut their net.

Two groups took the other side. U.S. retail investors put about $10 billion into leveraged ETFs in one week, including a record $7 billion into SOXL.⁸ In Korea, SK hynix’s KRW 40 trillion buyback absorbed supply until it ended on Oct 21. By our estimate from investor-flow data it had bought about KRW 39.4 trillion.⁹ Assets in Korea’s KODEX leveraged ETF were about five times those in the 2x inverse fund.¹⁰

The physical market did not confirm the panic. DDR5 16Gb spot averaged $61.10 on Oct 22, up 0.8% from Oct 19 and 11.4% from Sept 16.¹¹ The stocks sold the durability of memory profits beyond 2027, not today’s prices.

Much of the mechanical selling is already done. Goldman’s model of CTA global equity longs fell from about $125 billion to $39 billion, down 69%.¹² In the BofA fund manager survey, the share calling semiconductors the most crowded trade fell from 82% to 45%.¹³ The fuel left for another drop sits mostly with leveraged retail.

The book is a hedged crowd: long who gets paid, short who borrows

What do the funds hold now? The map below shows the book behind the selloff.

The logic has three parts.

Why own memory. A large share of 2026 and 2027 memory profits is already set by long-term contracts. The more AI spends, the more these companies get paid.
Why short the index instead of selling memory. Everyone owns the same longs, so selling them moves prices against you. Index and ETF shorts are cheaper and faster, and they fit multi-manager risk limits. Goldman’s short leverage was at the 99th percentile of the past five years.¹⁴
Why short the neoclouds. Companies that build data centers with debt and leases are hurt first when rates and credit wobble. Short interest in five neoclouds reached about $17 billion, or 20% to 26% of their float.¹⁵

The weak point of this book is correlation, not direction. The chart below uses a simplified book of 193% long and 120% short of equity, close to the reported gross and net.

If longs and short targets both fall 5%, the book loses 193% × 5% − 120% × 5% = 3.65 points of equity. If longs fall 5% while short targets rise 2%, it loses 9.65 + 2.40 = 12.05 points, 3.3 times more. That is when risk managers force de-grossing. So good news tends to produce a violent short-covering rally, and bad news on the long side produces the opposite: crowded longs down, shorted names up.

Korea fell on foreign cash selling, not index shorts

Korea is the clearest test of the long-unwind reading. Blue bars are foreign net buying of KOSPI cash equities. Orange bars are foreign net buying of KOSPI 200 futures.

In every sharp decline, foreigners sold cash equities in size and bought futures. Index shorts did not build up. The table gives the windows; futures figures are estimates.¹⁶

Window	KOSPI	Foreign cash (KRW tn)	KOSPI 200 futures (KRW tn)
Jun 23 to Jul 29	−37.9%	−44.0	+8.0
Jul 30 to Sep 23	+25.0%	−14.5	+1.9
Sep 24 to Oct 15	−21.6%	−27.0	+0.6
Oct 12 to 15 (part of the above)	−16.2%	−11.5	+3.2
Oct 16 to 23	−0.1%	−0.3	−1.45

Short positions point the same way. The short balance in Samsung Electronics fell from 0.12% to 0.07% of shares, and short interest in the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) fell 64% from mid-July to the end of September.¹⁷

Since Oct 16 the pattern has changed. Foreign cash selling has nearly stopped, and futures are sold on up days. That looks like keeping the longs and hedging the index. We sort each Korean session into one of four boxes.

The chart has no scale; the dots show direction only. Futures covering alone will not turn Korea. The futures short built since Oct 16 is about KRW 1.45 trillion, while cash flows move KRW 1 to 4 trillion on a typical day. A recovery needs box ①: foreign net buying of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix for at least two sessions, together with futures buying. Expiry and roll days do not count.

The next two weeks decide it: squeeze or one more leg down

A cluster of events lands between Oct 27 and Nov 3. Times are Korea time (KST); U.S. events after the close arrive the next morning in Korea.¹⁸

KST	Event	What it tests
Oct 27, morning	FINRA short interest (released Oct 26 U.S.)	Did neocloud shorts hold or grow? That is squeeze fuel
Oct 28	SK hynix third-quarter results	Memory contract visibility into 2027
Oct 29, 00:55	Oracle investor day	Funding plans for debt-built capacity
Oct 29, 03:00	FOMC decision	Rates for the borrowers
Oct 29, early morning	Alphabet and Microsoft results	Capex and demand wording
Oct 29	Samsung Electronics results call	Memory pricing and HBM
Oct 30, early morning	Amazon and Sandisk results	Capex and memory cost absorption
Nov 3	U.S. midterm elections	Policy risk

We weigh four paths to about Nov 6.

A. Short cover after the events pass (50%). Capex is kept or raised and the FOMC is uneventful. Funds lift hedges and the most shorted names outperform. In Korea the rally lasts only if foreign cash buying returns.
B. One more round of de-grossing, then a cover (25%). Bad news on the long side pushes crowded longs down while shorted names rise. Forced cuts take prices lower first. Covering during de-grossing is not a rebound.
C. Range-bound without a cover (15%). The events pass, volatility stays high, hedges stay on and the market has no direction.
D. A credit event that proves the shorts right (10%). High-yield spreads above 350bp, Oracle CDS stuck above 300bp and CoreWeave bonds at new lows would mean the funding chain is breaking.

If Big Tech puts 2027 capex on hold, we move 15 points from A to B. Together, the two downside paths (B and D) carry 35%.

Signals that tilt toward a squeeze

Microsoft’s wording passes at least three of four tests: demand still exceeds supply; calendar 2026 capex is raised or the December-quarter capex is at least the September quarter’s; leases not yet commenced keep growing; Azure grows 45% or more. We put the odds near 42%.
Alphabet and Amazon keep or raise capex and absorb higher memory prices without cutting build plans.
FINRA data show neocloud shorts held or grew as of Oct 15. That is the fuel.
Floors hold: the S&P 500 above 7,508 (Goldman’s medium-term CTA level), high-yield spreads below 350bp, CoreWeave’s 2032 notes above 75 cents.¹²
In Korea, foreigners buy Samsung Electronics and SK hynix shares for two or more sessions while also turning buyers of futures.
Oracle’s five-year CDS stays below 300bp for five sessions.

Signals that tilt toward another drop

Big Tech puts 2027 capex on hold or cuts it.
Credit: high-yield spreads above 350bp, Oracle CDS above 300bp for days, CoreWeave bonds at new lows.
Trend followers: an S&P 500 close below 7,508 risks flipping CTAs short. Goldman estimated about $143.8 billion of selling in a one-month decline.¹²
Retail leverage unwinds: large redemptions from SOXL or Korea’s KODEX leveraged ETF.
In Korea, foreign cash selling resumes (KRW 1 trillion or more in a day, or KRW 3 trillion or more over five sessions) together with futures buying.

Where a squeeze would bite hardest

Ranked by squeeze sensitivity, the names are CoreWeave (CRWV), Core Scientific (CORZ), Nebius (NBIS), Galaxy Digital (GLXY), Hut 8 (HUT) and Teradyne (TER). We leave out IREN, TeraWulf (WULF), Fluence (FLNC) and Bloom Energy (BE): heavy convertible-bond hedging means hedge selling appears as they rise. IREN and Nebius are more sensitive to Microsoft’s wording than CoreWeave. This is a ranking of sensitivity, not a recommendation.

History leans against fresh shorts after big drops. From January 2025 to October 2026, a day when SOX fell 3% or more was followed by an average 20-day gain of 5.1%, with gains 64% of the time. A day when SK hynix fell 5% or more was followed by an average 20-day gain of 9.0%. The exception is Korea’s rallies: after a KOSPI gain of 3% or more, the next 20 days averaged 0.0% with gains only 42% of the time, and the median low within 10 days was 5.1% below. Rallies without foreign cash buying were sold.¹⁹ That sample is a bull market, so treat it as a base rate, not a forecast.

Your turn

Which path do you think we are on, A, B, C or D? And which single signal would change your mind? Tell me in the comments. Push back where you think the map is wrong.

If this map helped you, a like helps other investors find it.

Daily closes retrieved Oct 24, 2026: S&P 500 from Yahoo Finance; SOX, Micron and CoreWeave from Nasdaq; KOSPI, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix from Naver Finance (KRX final closes after the extended session). Earlier figures that used provisional Korean closes were replaced. ↩︎
Lam Research, results for the quarter ended September 27, 2026 (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), 2026-10-21. The supply-ceiling reading is our interpretation. ↩︎
Meta Platforms, third-quarter 2026 results (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), 2026-10-21. ↩︎
CNBC, report on CoreWeave and Oracle credit stress, 2026-10-19. Oracle five-year CDS at 315bp and CoreWeave’s 9.625% 2032 notes at about 14.9% yield as reported; other sources quoted Oracle CDS near 322bp a day later. The 75-cent line is our own threshold. ↩︎
Goldman Sachs Prime Brokerage data on AI-stock flows for Oct 8 to 14, as shared by The Daily Shot on 2026-10-16. Secondary; no public link to the original note. ↩︎
Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance, hedge funds dumped tech stocks, 2026-10-19. Goldman Sachs prime brokerage data. ↩︎
Tickmill, summary of Goldman Sachs notes on the tech liquidation and the retail ETF chase, 2026-10-20. Gross 311.7% and net 72.7% for the week of Oct 16. Secondary summary of a paid note. ↩︎
Same Tickmill summary of Goldman Sachs notes, 2026-10-20: about $10 billion into leveraged ETFs in one week and a record $7 billion into SOXL. Secondary. ↩︎
SK hynix newsroom, share buyback and retirement, program of KRW 40 trillion approved 2026-08-19; completion reported by Chosun Biz on 2026-10-21. The KRW 39.4 trillion executed is our estimate from “other corporations” net buying in KRX investor data, not a disclosed figure. ↩︎
Naver Finance ETF data as of 2026-10-23: KODEX Leverage at about KRW 4.41 trillion in market value against about KRW 0.86 trillion for KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X. ↩︎
TrendForce, DRAM spot price, DDR5 16Gb session average $61.10 on 2026-10-22 against $54.83 on 2026-09-16, from a captured price table. ↩︎
Tickmill summaries of Goldman Sachs flow notes: Oct 13 (about $143.8 billion of CTA selling in a one-month decline), Oct 15 and Oct 20 (CTA global equity longs from about $125 billion to $39 billion; medium-term S&P 500 level 7,508). Secondary summaries of paid notes. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Mace News, BofA Global Fund Manager Survey for October, 2026-10-13. Secondary summary. ↩︎
Bloomberg, hedge funds pile into shorts as Goldman flags stock squeeze risk, 2026-10-22. The 193% long and 120% short split in our chart is a rounded reading of shared prime brokerage charts, consistent with the gross and net figures above, and is used for illustration. ↩︎
Reuters, short sellers pocket $6 billion in profits as neoclouds slide on AI debt fears, 2026-10-22, citing ORTEX data for CoreWeave, IREN, Nebius, Applied Digital and Core Scientific. ↩︎
Naver Finance investor-trend data (KRX based). Foreign cash flows by window are our sums of daily data; the Oct 16 to 23 total of about KRW −0.31 trillion was rechecked on Oct 24. KOSPI 200 futures amounts are estimates scaled against broker data and are used for direction. ↩︎
Samsung Electronics short balance from AlphaSquare (6.77 million shares on Sep 17 to 4.17 million on Oct 21; secondary). EWY short interest from FINRA consolidated short interest: 36.97 million shares on Jul 15 to 13.32 million on Sep 30. October data were not yet published. ↩︎
FINRA short interest schedule; SK hynix earnings call notice; Oracle investor day notice; Federal Reserve FOMC calendar; Microsoft earnings date; Alphabet earnings date; Amazon earnings webcast; Sandisk results date; Samsung Electronics IR events. ↩︎
Our calculation from daily closes, January 2025 to October 2026. The sample is mostly a rising market. ↩︎