In the past several sessions the largest ETF focused on equity exposure to South Korea, EWY (iShares MSCI South Korea Index, Expense Ratio 0.59%) has pulled in nearly $200 million in fresh new assets.
EWY is the largest ETF in the space by a mile, with $4.05 billion currently in assets under management and the top holding in the fund is a stock that seems to be regularly in the headlines these days in tandem with GOOG/AAPL/Smartphone discussions, Samsung Electronics (21.30%).
Other top holdings are Hyundai Motor (6.04%), POSCO (3.42%), Hyundai Mobis Co. (3.26%), and Kia Motors Corp (2.89%), most of which are likely familiar names to the U.S. consumer at this point.
There are several other ETFs in the South Korea space, including the smaller FKO (First Trust South Korea AlphaDEX, Expense Ratio 0.80%) which has only $4 million in AUM, and also two leveraged plays that definitely fly under the radar by most as evidenced by their very low AUM levels, KORU (Direxion Daily South Korea Bull 3X Shares, Expense Ratio 0.95%) and KORZ (Direxion Daily South Korea Bear 3X Shares, Expense Ratio 0.95%).
With EWY turning in a strong year thus far in terms of attracting net assets (+$700 million YTD), it is surprising that KORU and KORZ do not see more play, but then again these funds are rather new and undiscovered (inception April of this year). This morning EWY is on the verge of eclipsing a new recent high largely on the strength that Samsung stock has shown coming out of its early August doldrums.