On July 24, iShares MSCI South Korea ETF declined 5.14% in regular trading, trading at $164.875/share, with turnover of $528 million.

On the news front, the Korean KOSPI index plunged 5.72% to close at 6,690.62 points, with KOSPI futures falling more than 5% and triggering a five-minute trading halt. Heavyweight stocks SK Hynix dropped 7.7% and Samsung Electronics fell over 6%, as market concerns intensified over US tech giants potentially slowing artificial intelligence capital expenditure, which would weigh on the outlook for major Asian chipmakers. Additionally, oil prices remaining above $100 per barrel further dampened sentiment.

The selloff was amplified by ongoing deleveraging among Korean retail investors who had aggressively built leveraged positions in chip stocks via CFDs and leveraged ETFs. According to JPMorgan, approximately 75% of the leveraged ETF unwind has been completed, but CFD long positions remain near historic highs, with SK Hynix CFD holdings surging nearly 2,500% and Samsung Electronics CFD holdings rising fivefold, posing continued forced-liquidation risk.

The fund generally invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the MSCI Korea 25/50 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.)