CSOP Asset Management plans to list a KOSPI 200 ETF on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the second half of the year, industry officials said Monday, and Leverage Shares has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the Leverage Shares 2X Long Memory Daily ETF.
Lim Eun-hye, commenting on the move, said: "The introduction of a KOSPI 200 ETF could further improve overseas investors’ access to Korean equities," and added, "That increases the likelihood of more Korea-related ETFs launching on global markets going forward," framing the push as a bid to widen exposure to South Korea’s market.
The planned CSOP product would be the first ETF in Hong Kong directly tracking Korea's benchmark index. That matters because Hong Kong already hosts leveraged ETFs tied separately to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix — the leveraged ETF tied to Samsung Electronics has attracted around 2.4 trillion won in assets, and the leveraged ETF tied to SK hynix has attracted around 7.9 trillion won in assets.
Another strand of the story is the U.S. filing. Leverage Shares’ proposed fund is designed to deliver twice the daily return of the Roundhill Memory ETF. The Roundhill Memory ETF, a thematic fund focused on memory chipmakers, launched in early April and now has assets approaching $10 billion; Samsung Electronics and SK hynix together account for nearly half of its total holdings.
Context matters: Korea's stock market rally has drawn global attention, and product providers are responding with both benchmark and thematic tools. Hong Kong’s market already contains single-stock leveraged vehicles that have pulled large sums, and the U.S.-filed product would tie leverage directly to the memory theme created by the Roundhill fund.
Those facts create a clear tension. Products that push broad access to the KOSPI 200 sit alongside leveraged, concentrated plays that have already attracted heavy flows into a handful of names. The Roundhill fund’s near-$10 billion in assets and the near-half weighting in Samsung and SK mean a leveraged fund that delivers twice the daily return could magnify moves concentrated in those companies — and the Hong Kong leveraged ETFs’ 2.4 trillion won and 7.9 trillion won figures show investor appetite for such targeted exposure.
The immediate question is which effect will dominate: will a KOSPI 200 ETF in Hong Kong spread foreign capital more evenly across Korean markets, or will new launches simply provide additional channels for investors seeking concentrated, high-beta exposure to a few chipmakers? How flows behave once the CSOP product lists and the U.S. filing—if approved—hits the market will determine whether the next chapter widens access or deepens concentration in stocks such as SK hynix.
