On July 3, iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) declined 5.08% in regular trading, trading at $175.73/share, with turnover of $3.277 billion.
On the news front, the Korean won fell to 1559.10 per dollar, its lowest since 2009, while foreign investors have net sold approximately $95 billion from Korean equities year-to-date. The KOSPI index triggered circuit breakers twice within one week, plunging over 8% intraday, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both declining sharply. The won depreciation and foreign capital outflows have formed a negative feedback loop, as each stock sale requires conversion to USD, further pressuring the currency.
Additionally, Korea's Financial Supervisory Service is preparing tightened margin and credit trading regulations targeting leveraged single-stock ETFs, adding regulatory uncertainty to an already fragile market. The Bank of Korea sold a net $13.628 billion in Q1 foreign exchange interventions to stem won weakness, marking its sixth consecutive quarter of dollar sales.
The fund generally invests at least 80% of its assets in component securities of the MSCI Korea 25/50 Index, a free float-adjusted market capitalization-weighted index designed to measure the performance of large- and mid-cap Korean equities.
(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.)