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About 160 billion won ($120 million) in Samsung Group-themed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have been drained over the past two weeks, gripped by fears of a dent in corporate earnings in the third quarter, market watchers said Wednesday.

Further advancing the pessimism is the appreciation of the Korean currency against the dollar, a source of declining cost advantage for the global chip powerhouse. This in turn would weigh heavily on the share prices, already reeling from a 15 percent four-week slump to a mid-60,000 won level, a 52-week low.

According to Korea Securities Computing Corp. an IT and information provider, six Samsung Group-themed ETFs registered a net combined decrease of 159.2 billion won as of Sept. 12.

Chief among the losses was KODEX Samsung Group Value with a net drop of 119.6 billion won in fund valuations.

The product, designed to monitor the performance of six Samsung affiliates, included Samsung Electronics holdings of approximately 25 percent of the total.

Similarly, KODEX Samsung Group also logged a net decrease of 50.9 billion won in funds. About 22 percent of the portfolio was invested in the semiconductor affiliate of the group.

Market watchers say softer-than-expected sales of smartphones and desktop computers will extend constrained memory chip demand.

Additionally, the rapid decline of the one-time surprise growth factor in the second quarter is also a factor, led by greater-than-feared allocation to loss reserves set aside for potential reductions in inventory valuations.

An increasing number of brokerages continue to recommend underweight positions.

Eugene, Kiwoom, DB, KB, Hyundai Motor and Korea Investment have revised the target price down to as low as 91,000 won, a 17 percent decrease from the previous target of around 100,000 won.

A Kiwoom Securities report called for caution against a further steep fall in share prices.

"The recent downtrend in price trajectory was sparked by concerns about third-quarter performance, but has since accelerated due to overall weak conditions in the semiconductor market," it said.

"The prices can rebound at the first sign of DRAM market strength."

DRAM is short for dynamic random-access memory, a type of semiconductor memory chip.