Why the money walked
The KOSPI sank 22% in July. Samsung Electronics fell 21.5% and SK Hynix dropped 35.5%. For a leveraged ETF, those daily losses compound at double the speed. It didn't take long for investors to lose their taste for the risk.
August's outflow numbers show just how fast the turnaround was. The underlying stocks actually steadied last month — Samsung rose 3.63% and SK Hynix gained 2.19% — but the leveraged funds kept bleeding assets anyway.
Regulators tighten the rules
The selloff got ugly enough that officials called an emergency meeting after 864.5 trillion won left the market across two sessions. Lawmakers pinned the blame on single-stock leveraged ETFs for amplifying the slide. The response was quick: regulators raised the minimum deposit for new investors and mandated a five-day mock trading session before real money can go in.
Trading volumes in the leveraged ETFs cooled sharply after those measures landed. It's still unclear whether the slowdown is permanent, but the early numbers suggest the products have lost a lot of their speculative energy.
Chip stocks steady, but retail shifts to ELS
The chip stocks themselves found their footing in August,
