On July 17, iShares MSCI Korea ETF (EWY) declined 5.11% in regular trading, trading at $163.67/share, with turnover of $2.113 billion. The fund tracks large- and mid-cap Korean equities, with SK Hynix alone comprising roughly one-quarter of the portfolio.

On the news front, the Bank of Korea on July 16 raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 2.75%, marking its first hike in three and a half years, citing persistent inflation pressure from AI chip exports, a weakening won, and 75 consecutive weeks of rising property prices. Simultaneously, Korea's Financial Services Commission announced sweeping restrictions on single-stock leveraged ETFs, tripling the minimum margin requirement to 30 million won, capping trades at 20 shares per order, and banning new leveraged product listings.

The dual shock triggered KOSPI's eighth circuit breaker of the year, with the index plunging 6.90% in a single session. Deleveraging progress stands at only 30%-40% complete, with over 320,000 accounts already forced to liquidate. Foreign investors and domestic institutions were concentrated net sellers of Korean tech stocks, with institutional ETF disposals reaching approximately $738 million on the day. UBS maintained its KOSPI 9200 target but warned that elevated volatility will continue to accelerate leveraged fund unwinding.

The fund generally invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of its underlying index, a free float-adjusted market capitalization-weighted index designed to measure the performance of the large- and mid-capitalization segments of the Korean equity market. The fund is non-diversified.

(The above content is based on publicly available market information, generated by a program or algorithm, and is intended solely as a stock movement alert. It does not constitute investment advice or a basis for trading decisions.)