You do not need a Korean brokerage account to hold Korean equity risk. Two funds listed in New York do the work — iShares MSCI South Korea (EWY) and Franklin FTSE South Korea (FLKR) — and one Korean company, SK hynix, now trades in its own right on Nasdaq under SKHY. We set out what each one holds, what each one costs, and the point at which the shortcut stops working.
Last verified: 6 August 2026. Built from the iShares product page for EWY, Franklin Templeton’s summary prospectus for FLKR as filed with the SEC on 1 August 2026, and SK hynix’s own newsroom announcement of its ADR listing. Expense ratios and listing dates hold. Net assets, sector weights and total returns move, and every one of them below carries the date we read it on.
Editor’s opinion
The fee is the only part of this choice you can know in advance
Our view is that FLKR at 0.09 per cent is the sensible starting point for broad Korean exposure bought through a US listing, and that EWY at 0.59 per cent has to earn the difference rather than have it assumed.
A fee is contractual and known today. The index gap, the sector drift and the tracking difference are all read backwards, after the money is in. Six times the annual cost, over a holding period nobody can specify in advance, is the single number that is fixed before you buy.
The counter-evidence is real and it is not small. EWY reported a 188.51 per cent one-year total return to 30 June 2026 against its benchmark’s 182.97, holds about 26 billion dollars, and has traded since May 2000. That size buys spreads, an options chain and a borrow market a smaller fund cannot offer. Franklin also states in its own prospectus that FLKR settles creations and redemptions wholly in cash, which it says may make the fund somewhat less tax-efficient than one using in-kind baskets. Our view survives that only because the fee is certain and the rest is not. If you need option chains or scale, the cheaper fund cannot supply them and this argument does not apply to you.
Andrew Lee. This section argues a view rather than establishing a fact. It is not a forecast and not a recommendation, and the material it draws on is listed in the sources below.
Two American funds, and what separates them
Both funds do the same plain thing. They sit on a US exchange, price in dollars, settle like any American share, and hold Korean equities on your behalf. Neither asks you for a Korean investor registration, a won account or a local broker. What separates them is the index behind each one and the price of reaching it.
EWY is the older and far larger fund. iShares lists it on NYSE Arca against the MSCI Korea 25/50 Index (Net), with about 26 billion dollars of net assets as at 5 August 2026, 78 holdings, and an inception date of 9 May 2000. FLKR tracks the FTSE South Korea Capped Index and listed on 2 November 2017. That index held 156 constituents as at 31 May 2026, spanning 613 million to 1.39 trillion dollars of market value.
The two US-listed Korea funds, side by side
Every figure as reported by the manager, on the date shown
| Item | EWY | FLKR |
|---|---|---|
| Index tracked | MSCI Korea 25/50 (Net) | FTSE South Korea Capped |
| Expense ratio | 0.59 per cent | 0.09 per cent |
| Listed | 9 May 2000, NYSE Arca | 2 November 2017 |
| Positions | 78 holdings | index of 156 names, 31 May 2026 |
| Concentration | information technology 48.17 per cent | semiconductors above 25 per cent, disclosed as a risk |
Left column from the iShares product page for EWY, read 6 August 2026. Right column from the Franklin Templeton summary prospectus for FLKR filed with the SEC on 1 August 2026. Both are the manager’s own documents, which is why we print them rather than a vendor summary of them.
The fee gap, and what it does not buy
FLKR charges 0.09 per cent a year against EWY’s 0.59, so the cheaper fund costs roughly one sixth of the dearer one. On 10,000 dollars that is 50 dollars a year of difference, and it recurs whether the market rises or falls.
What the gap does not buy you is comparability. Franklin reports a 91.79 per cent one-year pre-tax return to 31 December 2025 and a 101.30 per cent year-to-date figure to 30 June 2026. iShares reports 188.51 per cent for the twelve months to 30 June 2026. Those are different windows on a market that moved hard in between, and setting them side by side tells you very little.
One point cuts against the cheap fund, and Franklin makes it itself: FLKR processes creations and redemptions entirely in cash rather than through a basket of shares, which the manager says may leave it somewhat less tax-efficient than an in-kind competitor. A fee is certain and a tax drag is contingent. The second is still not zero.
Two return figures with different end dates are not a comparison. If you want one, take both funds’ returns to the same date from the same kind of document — two product pages, or two prospectuses — and never one from each.
A Korea label on a tin that is mostly semiconductors
Buying either fund is less a bet on Korea than a bet on a handful of chipmakers with a Korean flag on the packaging. EWY’s information technology weight stood at 48.17 per cent on the page we read, with industrials at 20.17 and financials at 11.55. Close to half the fund sits in one sector.
FLKR’s index is built the same way, and Franklin says so rather than leaving you to work it out. The FTSE South Korea Capped Index was concentrated more than 25 per cent in semiconductors and semiconductor equipment, and the firm discloses that as a concentration risk. The counter-fact belongs beside it — a capped index exists to limit how large any single name can grow, and this one still ended a quarter of the way into one industry.
So diversification is not what you are buying here. If your reason for wanting Korea is memory pricing, both funds express it. If it was to own something detached from the chip cycle, neither does.
SK hynix has a real US listing. Samsung does not.
The exception to the fund route is one company. SK hynix listed American depositary receipts on Nasdaq under the ticker SKHY, issuing 177.9 million ADSs at 149 dollars each to raise 26.51 billion dollars, which its newsroom describes as the largest ADR listing on record. That is a sponsored programme: the company arranged it and answers for it.
Samsung Electronics has nothing equivalent. The ticker you will find quoted as SSNLF is an unsponsored over-the-counter depositary receipt, created without the company’s involvement, very thinly traded, and only loosely tied to the issuer whose name it carries. We have set out separately what SSNLF actually is. The short answer is that a Korea fund is a more dependable way to own Samsung than the ticker with Samsung in the name.
Sponsored and unsponsored are not two grades of the same product. A sponsored programme exists because the issuer wanted it and maintains it. An unsponsored one exists because a depositary bank chose to create it, and the company it names owes its holders nothing at all.
What the shortcut does not give you
Two things the fund route removes, it removes for good. You reach nothing outside the index, so the mid-caps and small caps that make up most of the Korea Exchange listing count are simply absent from your portfolio. And you hold no vote, because the fund owns the shares and you own the fund.
If that is the part you mind, the alternative is an account that reaches the exchange itself, and we have written up the direct route through Interactive Brokers and what it costs you in paperwork. The trade is not really cost against convenience. It is breadth against forms.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 9 May 2000 | EWY lists on NYSE Arca, tracking MSCI Korea 25/50 |
| 2 November 2017 | FLKR lists, at one sixth of EWY’s expense ratio |
| December 2025 | EWY’s annual distribution, 2.037071 dollars a share |
| 30 June 2026 | Date both managers report a return to, on different windows |
| 10 July 2026 | SK hynix ADRs begin trading on Nasdaq as SKHY |
| 1 August 2026 | Franklin files the current FLKR summary prospectus with the SEC |
None of these three routes is new and none of them is provisional. That is the point of the dates above: this is a decision you can act on from a US brokerage account you already hold.
Sources
We take facts from these and write our own sentences. Where a figure originates in a company filing we say so, and where it originates in a research house estimate we name the house. We link to a document only where we hold the exact address for it; a link to a publisher’s front page would not get you to the source, so where we do not have the direct address we give you enough to find it.
Filings and official documents
- iShares, BlackRock, iShares MSCI South Korea ETF product page, read 6 August 2026. Net assets, exchange, index, expense ratio, inception date, holdings count, sector weights, one-year total return and the December 2025 distribution.
- Franklin Templeton ETF Trust, Franklin FTSE South Korea ETF summary prospectus, filed with the SEC on 1 August 2026. Expense ratio, index and constituent count, market-value range, semiconductor concentration risk, cash creations and redemptions, listing date, turnover and returns.
- SK hynix Newsroom, SK hynix Lists ADRs on NASDAQ, July 2026. ADS count, offer price, gross proceeds, ticker and the company’s own characterisation of the listing’s size.
Corrections
None yet. If you can point to a primary document that contradicts anything above, we will correct it and say what changed.
Disclosure. The author holds no position in EWY, FLKR, SK hynix or Samsung Electronics as of the date of publication. This article is general information and analysis about market access, exchange-traded fund structure and depositary receipts. It is not investment advice, not tax advice, not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and not a forecast of any price or index level. The section headed Editor’s opinion is comment: it argues a view, and we fence it off from the sourced material for that reason. We have not tailored anything here to your circumstances, and only a qualified adviser in your jurisdiction can do that. We are not registered as an investment adviser in any jurisdiction, and this site has no commercial relationship with any company, exchange, fund manager or research provider named above. See the Editorial & Sourcing Policy and Disclaimer.