On July 9, iShares MSCI South Korea ETF declined 5.06% overnight, trading at $173.55/share, with turnover of approximately $120 million.
On the news front, the Korean KOSPI index plunged over 5% for a second consecutive day on July 8, falling more than 20% from its June all-time high and officially entering a technical bear market. South Korea's Finance Minister convened an emergency meeting with the central bank and financial regulators, explicitly flagging semiconductor sector concentration as a systemic risk and warning that chip sector volatility is increasingly amplifying broader market swings.
The sell-off was compounded by growing concerns over leveraged ETFs linked to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Regulators noted that approximately 212 trillion won ($138.6 billion) has flowed into leveraged products tied to these two companies, which together account for roughly 60% of KOSPI's total market capitalization. The Korea Exchange triggered circuit breakers on the KOSDAQ, halting programmatic sell orders. Lawmakers have initiated reviews that could lead to delisting of single-stock leveraged ETF products.
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 large- and mid-cap equity segments in Korea.
(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.)