KODEX Samsung Group (102780) 🔎 In-depth

It follows a Samsung Group index built by selecting Samsung Group affiliates listed on Korea's stock market that are above a certain size (₩1 trillion in market capitalization). Each company is held in proportion to the size of its shares actually traded in the market (free-float market cap), and the constituents are regularly reviewed in June and December each year.

It actually holds the shares of Samsung affiliates and tracks their combined trend directly. As a plain product with no multiple attached, it moves at 1x, rising as much as the index rises and falling as much as it falls. Because it invests in domestic stocks, it is not affected by exchange rates.

By diversifying across Samsung affiliates in several industries, it carries less risk than buying just one individual stock. That said, because the affiliates share group governance, brand and strategy, an issue affecting the group as a whole can produce a "co-movement" tendency in which several names move together. It also has weight in industries highly sensitive to the economy and industry cycle, such as semiconductors, batteries and bio, so the index is to some extent driven by the earnings trends of core affiliates including Samsung Electronics.

Heading into 2026, the combined market capitalization of Samsung Group affiliates grew substantially. With the chip leader Samsung Electronics driving the whole group, Samsung SDI narrowed its losses on expanding sales of energy storage systems (ESS) in the US and high-value cylindrical batteries, and a swing to profit in the second half was cited as a possibility, whereas Samsung Biologics showed relatively weak performance amid labor issues and the like, so there were temperature differences among affiliates. When affiliates' circumstances diverge like this, offsetting each other's trends to some degree is a feature of a group-diversified ETF.

In a word, it is a product that invests not in Samsung Electronics alone but in the entire Samsung "group" at once. By spreading across several affiliates and several industries, it effectively tracks the comprehensive report card of the Samsung Group.