Korean Stock & Equity Research

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

Most foreign investors don't manually convert currency at all — their broker automatically converts USD to KRW at the time of trade execution, applying a spread over the interbank rate. Since a 2023 reform, Korea has also opened its onshore USD/KRW market directly to foreign financial institutions and extended local trading hours, changing how currency conversion happens at the institutional lev..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

The US 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.216% at auction on August 13, 2026 — the highest borrowing cost in a quarter century — even as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has deployed nearly every tool available to him. The reason yields keep climbing despite his efforts is structural: the actual levers that move long-term rates sit with the Federal Reserve and Congress, not the Treasury Department, an..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

In January 2025, Korea's National Pension Service quietly executed a currency hedge that helped pull USD/KRW back from a threatened 1,500 toward the 1,300s. In June 2025, it stopped. By September, the Won had breached 1,400 again — vindicating a July prediction that drew public skepticism at the time. And by August 2026, the currency had reversed sharply again, this time strengthening from above..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

When hedge funds smell a currency defense running low on ammunition, they move as a coordinated pack. In 1997, that pack took down Thailand's currency peg, tried and failed twice against Hong Kong, and pushed Korea to the brink of default within weeks. The mechanics behind that crisis — and the behavioral finance principle about buying during panic that market veterans still apply today — offer ..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

Two CPI prints in five weeks briefly convinced markets the Fed's inflation fight was largely over. Then Middle East tensions pushed oil up 20% in two weeks, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh publicly warned against declaring victory, and SK Hynix's new Nasdaq-listed shares traded 49% above their Seoul price with no easy way to close the gap. July 2026 was a useful reminder that in interconnected markets, a ..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

In May 2026, Korean regulators approved single-stock leveraged ETFs tracking Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, hoping the move would pull Korean investment capital back from Hong Kong and help defend the Won. Two months later, Korea's own financial regulator publicly acknowledged the plan hadn't worked as intended. The data behind that admission is a useful case study in what happens when policy..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

The Yen recently touched its weakest level against the Dollar in roughly 40 years, even as the Bank of Japan holds its policy rate at 1.00% and signals more hikes are coming. That combination — a central bank tightening while its currency keeps sliding — is the story of a fiscal and monetary policy tug-of-war playing out in Tokyo right now, one directly connected to the joint US-Japan interventi..

Macro & Policy/Currency & Rates

The 30-year US Treasury real yield recently hit its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis — even as textbook logic suggests an oil price shock should push real yields lower, not higher. Understanding why requires breaking the nominal interest rate down into its component parts, and tracing a structural supply-demand imbalance building in the Treasury market. This piece also covers the Au..