Since the election of Joe Biden as the US president earlier this month, South Korean investors have rushed to purchase stocks of electric vehicle producers in the US that are expected to gather momentum during the new presidency, data showed Sunday.

From Nov. 9 to 13, after Biden’s victory started becoming clear, domestic investors bought a combined $96.63 million worth of stocks for electric vehicle makers, including Xpeng Motors and Tesla.

Among the EV companies and other US stocks in different segments, Xpeng was the most favored US stock during the period as domestic traders net bought $31.09 million of the firm’s shares.

Pfizer, which recently announced positive early results of coronavirus vaccine trial, was the runner-up with investors buying $30.63 million. They were followed by other electric vehicle makers -- Tesla with $31.06 million, Nio with 12.45 million, BYD with $10 million and Li Auto with $6.75 million.

Market analysts said that the rising popularity of electric vehicle stocks are linked to global governments’ drives to go green and promote related industries.

“With the election of the new president, the EV market in the US is predicted to grow exponentially,” said Im Eung-young, an analyst at local brokerage Samsung Securities, adding “The rising demand in China and Europe will boost EV sales to 3.7 million next year, up 38.6 percent on-year.”

The expected sales figure is forecast to amount to 4.5 percent of the entire automotive sales next year.

Alongside the electric vehicle stocks, companies in the renewable energy sector were also among the most-bought US stocks in Korea. Local traders bought a net $5.8 million shares in electric utility firm NextEra Energy and $4.7 million of iShare S&P Global Clean Energy ETF, a fund based on the performance of alternative energy stocks.

Solar power inverter maker SolarEdge and fuel cell maker Bloom Energy were among the most favored stocks by Korean investors.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)