If history is any guide, the short answer is “no,” but index geeks will get another chance to debate the status of Asia’s fourth-largest economy this evening when index provider MSCI (NYSE: MSCI) reveals its annual market reclassification.
On six previous occasions, South Korea has been up for a promotion to developed market status. All six times, MSCI has opted to keep South Korea as part of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. That also means with $4.4 billion in assets under management, the iShares MSCI South Korea Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWY) is one of the larges single-country emerging markets ETFs.
“Reclassifying South Korea is potentially a big deal for the country’s stocks because trillions of dollars in investor cash is benchmarked to MSCI indexes. Two of MSCI’s competitors have already upgraded South Korea to developed-market status, including FTSE Group in 2009,” reports Nicole Hong for the Wall Street Journal.
FTSE upgrading South Korea to developed market status means the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: VWO), the largest emerging markets ETF by assets, does not include South Korean equities in its lineup. However, VWO’s primary rival, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM) allocates almost 15.6% of its weight to South Korea, making the country EEM’s second-largest country weight behind China. [Vanguard ETFs See Inflows Following Index Changes]
There is precedent for a country-specific ETF performs after the nation it tracks is promoted to developed from emerging status. As the Journal notes, Israel landed that promotion in 2010. Over the past four years, the iShares MSCI Israel Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EIS) is up 7.7% while the iShares MSCI ACWI ETF (NasdaqGM: ACWI) is up 53.1%.
Global investors have argued that South Korea should be a developed market, pointing out the country has a higher GDP than Portugal, a developed market, but MSCI has frequently cited the lack of offshore convertibility of the won as one reason for keeping South Korea as an emerging market.
The Horizons Korea KOSPI 200 ETF (NYSEArca: HKOR) is another ETF to monitor on a potential upgrade of South Korea’s market status. HKOR is the only U.S.-listed South Korea ETF that acts as a proxy for the Kospi 200, South Korea’s equivalent of the S&P 500. The Kospi 200, HKOR’s underlying index, is the most widely used Korean stock benchmark used in Korea, as well as the rest of Asia. [South Korea ETFs Could Shoot Higher]
Home to 200 stocks, HKOR has nearly twice the number of holdings as does EWY. HKOR excludes preferred shares, which are featured in EWY, according to issuer data. HKOR is up 6.3% since its early March debut.
iShares MSCI South Korea Capped ETF
