Mirae Asset Global Investments said on Tuesday its TIGER U.S. Space Tech ETF recorded about 61.5 billion won in net buying by retail investors on its first day of trading.

The ETF was launched on April 14 with an initial size of 30 billion won. Its initial allotment sold out within an hour as money from retail and institutional investors flowed in after listing.

Retail net buying on the listing day totalled 61,469,000,000 won, confirming strong investor interest in the space industry. It was the largest amount of retail net buying on a listing day among domestically listed passive ETFs.

The portfolio is built around companies leading the New Space era, including Rocket Lab at about 23 percent, Intuitive Machines at 17 percent, AST SpaceMobile at 15 percent and Redwire at 15 percent.

It is designed to directly reflect the benefits of industry growth by allocating about 70 percent to upstream areas, which include core infrastructure such as launch vehicles and satellites.

It also has a structure that can quickly reflect SpaceX in the portfolio if the company lists in the United States in the future.

It applies a rule that allows inclusion of up to a 25 percent weighting upon a SpaceX listing, enabling it to quickly reflect listing momentum for a key company.

Namho Kim (김남호), head of the Global ETF Management Division at Mirae Asset Global Investments, said the ETF drew investor interest because it was the first in South Korea to be composed of pure U.S. space companies. He said it is being evaluated as a highly complete solution because it can quickly reflect industry trends centred on private space companies.