Without a doubt, the fate of emerging markets in 2019 could hinge on the United States and China finally putting to rest their trade differences with a tangible agreement, but for single-country exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like the Direxion Daily South Korea Bull 3X ETF (NYSEArca: KORU), its fortunes could change dramatically as wells as benefit traders of KORU.
South Korea itself is rife for foreign investment as it boasts Asia’s fourth largest economy based on gross domestic product and in terms of political stability, it’s situated in the top 28 percent of the Corruption Index published by Transparency International. Nonetheless, trade wars continue to be a challenge–something the country forecasted in the early beginnings of the trade spat between China and the US.
“South Korean exporters depend heavily on China and the US. It will be one of the hardest hit economies in the world if an all-out trade war breaks out,” said Kim Yun-hee, a senior trade commissioner from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) back in July. “Many of these companies will be hit indirectly because they sell intermediate goods to China and are linked to US companies in China.”
Over the summer, the South China Morning Post reported that the impact of the tariff-for-tariff battle between the US and China would cause South Korean exports to drop by 6.4 percent or $36.7 billion based on numbers provided by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).
Two months later, an article in the Nikkei Asian Review reported that South Korean trade minister Kim Hyun-chong said the country experienced its biggest fall in exports in the last two years–a sign that the proposed impact of the trade wars was indeed coming into fruition.
“If the U.S.-China trade war is not solved within this year, it will inevitably affect our exports negatively,” said Park Hee-chan, an economist at Mirae Asset Daewoo. “Still, it is not easy to measure the impacts in numbers, but I am sure that global trade will be under downside pressure.”
