South Korea: A Different Memory Lane But Narrow Breadth of Performers

Research evidence excerpt

South Korea: A Different Memory Lane But Narrow Breadth of Performers

Update

May 27, 2026 10:39 AM GMT

Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc, Seoul Branch+MSouth Korea | Asia Pacific Joon Seok

Equity Analyst

A Different Memory Lane But Joon.Seok@morganstanley.comHeewon Choi +82 2 399-4934

Heewon.Choi@morganstanley.com +82 2 399-4836

Narrow Breadth of Performers Minseo Kang

Research Associate

Minseo.Kang@morganstanley.com +82 2 399-4816

Key Takeaways

High trading volume in Samsung Electronics (SEC) and SK hynix leveraged ETFs

indicates that retail investors remain constructive on the chipmakers.

KOSPI nearly reached the 8,500 level but ended the day at 8,228.7 (+2.56%).

Market breadth was very narrow – only 8% of stocks rose, while 87% declined.

ETFs are becoming the preferred investment vehicle for domestic equities among

retail investors – they account for ~8% of KOSPI market cap.

We see further upside for KOSPI as we lean toward the upper bound of our 3–6

month trading band of 6,500–9,500, with a bull-case target of 10,000.

SEC (+2.68%) and SK hynix (+9.3%) shares rose today (May 27), with proxy holding

company stocks and Samsung preferred shares (+2.56%) also moving higher. We

remain positive on chipmakers and on proxy holding companies, namely SK Square

(+8.04%) and Samsung Life (+1.87%).

Several positive newsflow items preceded the open, including Micron’s share price

surge and a broker upgrade of SanDisk to Overweight. However, today’s focus was

the launch of 16 single-stock leveraged ETFs on Samsung and SK hynix.

According to media reporting (FN News, May 27, 2026), aggregate trading value for

the 16 ETFs reached ~W10tn, with KODEX SK Hynix and TIGER SK Hynix leveraged

ETFs among the most actively traded. In contrast, inverse ETFs recorded lower