KOSPI, KOSDAQ, ADRs, ETFs, the won, and how foreign investors actually access Korean assets.
A law that took effect on 6 March 2026 turned the treasury share from a control device into a countdown. Companies have until September 2027 to empty the vault, and the Korea Exchange numbers show them doing it faster than they are refilling it.
On 28 May the National Pension Service raised its 2026 target weight in Korean shares from 14.9% to 20.8%. Five weeks later the fund held 29.1%. The gap, and what the fund is quietly underweight, matter more than the headline.
Two index providers look at the same exchange and reach opposite conclusions. The disagreement is about the won, and the arithmetic of an upgrade is less flattering than the campaign for one suggests.
Four consecutive surplus months put Korea within reach of its first annual tourism surplus since 2000. Half of it is foreigners spending more. The other half is Koreans priced out of flying abroad.
The tax on a KOSPI sale went from 0.15% to 0.20% on 1 January. It moved by cabinet decree, because that is where Korea's securities transaction tax rate has lived for years.
The KOSPI roughly doubled, then fell 44% from its all-time high of 9,385.59 on 19 June. Here is what actually caused it — leveraged single-stock ETFs, margin debt and a two-stock index — and where the market stands in August 2026.
Four realistic routes into Korean equities for a non-resident investor — ADRs, US-listed ETFs, local-listed ETFs and a direct KRX account — with the costs, tax treatment, currency exposure and access frictions of each.
