Why Korean 'Seohak Ants' Bet $796 Million on SpaceX in a Single Day

On June 12, 2026, South Korea's 14 million-strong army of retail investors—colloquially known as "seohak ants"—executed a single-day net purchase of about $796 million in SpaceX shares on the Nasdaq. The sum, confirmed by the Korea Securities Depository, instantly made Elon Musk's aerospace venture the most popular US stock in the country, with one day's buying outpacing the cumulative three-month net purchases of any other US equity .

This was not merely another tech bet. It was the release of months of pent-up demand that had been denied access to the world's largest IPO, amplified by record-breaking retail allocations on the US side and a 19% first-day price surge. Here is what aligned to create the historic buying frenzy.

Shut Out of the IPO, Forced Into the Secondary Market

The root cause of the record-breaking open-market buying was a failed allocation pipeline. Mirae Asset Securities, one of the global underwriters for the IPO, was unable to secure any shares for its Korean clients despite marketing the offering heavily. Promises of access to a $300 million private placement tranche—which sold out in a single minute—were left unfulfilled .

The fallout triggered a regulatory probe by South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), which widened its investigation into Mirae Asset's inability to deliver allocations . With the IPO door slammed shut, Korean investors shifted their orders to the secondary market, creating an immediate and immense demand spike when trading finally opened on the Nasdaq .

A Perfect Storm: Elon Musk, FOMO, and a Delayed Debut

Beyond the allocation failure, three psychological and structural forces amplified the buying:

• The growth narrative meets established behavior. SpaceX—a company synonymous with reusable rockets, Starlink internet, and Mars ambitions—fits neatly into the specific type of frontier tech story that Korean "ant" investors have been chasing for years as they shift capital away from the domestic KOSPI . The desire to own a piece of this narrative was primed months in advance.

• FOMO amplified by the mechanics of the debut. Buy orders were so heavy at the open that SpaceX's first trade was delayed for hours, and the stock briefly hit $160 before opening at $150 (versus a $135 IPO price) . It closed the day with a 19.22% gain, reaching a market capitalization of approximately $2.1 trillion, making it the sixth-most valuable US public company . For the locked-out investors, the surging price reinforced the fear of missing out in real time.

• A global retail phenomenon. SpaceX allocated a record 20% of its IPO shares to retail investors in the US, fueling a broader global rush. Once it began trading, SpaceX accounted for 56% of all retail net buying activity in the US on that day, with purchases running at 3.5 times the pace of Nvidia, the next most-bought stock . The Korean cohort's ~$796 million was the single largest international expression of this global trend .

Structural Shift in Korean Retail Behavior

The SpaceX trade is not an isolated incident. It is an extreme data point in a longer arc of Korean individual investors moving aggressively into US equities. This trend has persisted even as domestic markets hit record highs, with "seohak ants" at times shifting billions of dollars between Tesla, leveraged ETFs, and crypto-related stocks based on momentum .

SpaceX simply became the highest-conviction single-stock expression of that migration on the day it debuted. The one-day total eclipsed the net buying Korean retail investors had directed toward any other US stock—including Tesla and Nvidia—over the entire preceding three months . The Korean appetite was so large that even the country's domestic space-themed ETFs collectively bought nearly $2.1 billion worth of SpaceX shares on the open market that day, most of it after being unable to secure IPO allocations .

The episode demonstrates a new reality for blockbuster global IPOs: when access is restricted in certain markets, deferred demand can re-enter with a force that eclipses all other trades and momentarily rewrites the hierarchy of favorite stocks among a nation's retail investors.