TL;DR — If you hold EWY. As of Oct. 16, 2026, 44.00% of EWY is just two stocks, Samsung Electronics (22.49%) and SK hynix (21.51%), so much of what moves the EWY stock price is how those two closed in Seoul. That 44% is not a fixed rule: it shrinks when the two fall harder than the rest of the fund, and a week earlier (as of Oct. 9) it was 47.58%.
Not financial advice.
What moves the EWY stock price? Its top two holdings.
EWY, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF, trades in dollars on NYSE Arca. In a U.S. brokerage app it shows up as a fund with 77 holdings. That number is correct. But for the price, the number that matters more is 44%: almost half of the fund is two companies, and both are memory-chip makers.
So the question “why did the EWY stock price move like that?” mostly turns into a different question: “how did Samsung Electronics and SK hynix close in Seoul?” The prices those two set at the Seoul regular-session close (3:30 p.m. Korea time) show up in EWY that night in New York. Because the two markets trade at different hours, we avoid pairing one EWY day with one Seoul day. Over a week, though, the two usually point the same way.
Your Door — if you hold EWY. Of every $1,000 in EWY, about $225 is Samsung Electronics and about $215 is SK hynix, as of Oct. 16. The next dates to check are SK hynix’s third-quarter results on Oct. 28 at 9 a.m. Seoul time (company filing) and MSCI’s November index review, to be announced Nov. 11 and effective Dec. 1, the next date when the index’s weight limits are applied again (more on that below).
Weights are from iShares holdings files, as of the date shown; they change every business day. Korean stock and index prices are KRX (Korea Exchange) regular-session closes (3:30 p.m. Seoul), in won. EWY prices are U.S. closes on U.S. trading days, in dollars.
Under the Gat (our take). “Don’t memorize one number. Memorize the number and its date. 51% in July, 47% in early October, 44% now: they are all correct.”
EWY top holdings, with a date attached
| Rank | Holding | Weight in EWY |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930) | 22.49% |
| 2 | SK hynix (KRX: 000660; U.S.-listed as SKHY) | 21.51% |
| 3 | Samsung Electro-Mechanics | 2.59% |
| 4 | SK Square | 2.58% |
| 5 | KB Financial (U.S.-listed as KB) | 2.20% |
| Top 2 combined | 44.00% | |
| Top 10 combined | 58.87% | |
| Sector: information technology | 49.25% (iShares classification) |
Source: iShares fund holdings file, as of Oct. 16, 2026. Weights change every business day; the numbers in this table are correct for this date only.
The gap between No. 1 and No. 3 tells you what kind of fund this is. Samsung Electronics alone is about 8.7 times the third-largest holding. After the top two, the list becomes a long tail of holdings in the 1% and 2% range.
Why do sites show different EWY numbers?
Here is the top-two weight we read from the same iShares file on five dates between Sept. 30 and Oct. 16.
| iShares as-of date | Samsung Electronics + SK hynix |
|---|---|
| Sept. 30, 2026 | 46.49% |
| Oct. 7, 2026 | 46.10% |
| Oct. 9, 2026 | 47.58% |
| Oct. 14, 2026 | 45.61% |
| Oct. 16, 2026 | 44.00% |
All five are exact numbers for their date. Whether a search result or a stock screener says “EWY’s top two are 50%” or “41%,” look at the date before the number. (Why screeners disagree is covered separately in why screeners show 43% vs. 50%)
Why did EWY’s concentration fall during the crash?
This runs against intuition. When a market falls apart, it is easy to assume the two-stock tilt got worse. This time it went the other way.
On KRX closes in won, from Oct. 8 to Oct. 16:
- KOSPI (Korea’s main index): −14.46%
- Samsung Electronics: −17.75%
- SK hynix: −24.33%
The two stocks fell more than the index, so their share of the fund shrank, from 47.58% (as of Oct. 9) to 44.00% (as of Oct. 16). That is just arithmetic, not evidence about which investors were selling.
Over the same week, counted in U.S. trading days, EWY fell 15.12% in dollars, from $177.24 on Oct. 9 to $150.44 on Oct. 16. That is the crash week alone; from its June 18 closing high of $219.20, EWY is down 31.37% (see KOSPI’s 14% crash week). The KOSPI figure is in won, and the two trade at different hours, so we do not subtract one from the other to make a “gap.”
Isn’t there a cap? The 25/50 rule
EWY follows the MSCI Korea 25/50 Index, built by the index company MSCI. That index limits any single stock to 25%, and limits the combined weight of all stocks above 5% to 50%. But the limits are not checked every day. They are applied on regular rebalancing dates, when MSCI resets the weights at its quarterly index reviews. Between those dates, weights move freely with prices. That is why SK hynix could sit at about 27.7% of EWY when this page first ran in early July, above the 25% limit. It is at 21.51% as of Oct. 16.
In short: the rule sets the ceiling, and the market sets the daily number.
What does this say about Korea’s market?
Under the Gat (our take). “Here is what the weights table above tells you about Korea’s market. The ‘two-stock concentration’ in Korea’s stock market is not a structure anyone designed. It is the result of two memory companies’ share prices. So that number rises and falls with the chip cycle. Going from 47.58% on Oct. 9 to 44.00% on Oct. 16 was not a rule change; it was a price change. For EWY holders this has a practical use: to understand EWY’s moves, look at the memory-chip business and the two companies’ earnings dates, not only the list of 77 holdings.”
How do you buy it, and what is the U.S. comparison?
- How to get exposure: EWY on NYSE Arca. SK hynix can be held on its own through SKHY on Nasdaq, a U.S.-traded receipt for shares of the same company you already partly own through EWY (see how to buy SK hynix stock from the U.S.). Samsung Electronics common stock has no U.S.-listed ADR; you hold it through a Korean brokerage account or indirectly through a fund such as EWY.
- U.S. anchor: picture an S&P 500 fund in which two companies make up 44%. Not a perfect parallel: the S&P 500 is not built that way, whereas EWY looks like this because the Korean market itself is.
The bottom line
When you look at EWY, remember two numbers, not one: the weight and its date. As of Oct. 16, it is 44%. The next checkpoints are SK hynix’s third-quarter results on Oct. 28 and MSCI’s November index review.
FAQ
What are EWY’s top holdings?
As of Oct. 16, 2026, Samsung Electronics (22.49%) and SK hynix (21.51%), together 44.00% of the fund (iShares). The weights change by date.
Why did the EWY stock price fall?
On price, EWY fell 31.37% in dollars, from its June 18 closing high of $219.20 to $150.44 on Oct. 16. Because 44% of the fund is two memory-chip stocks, where those two close in Seoul explains much of the move in EWY’s dollar price.
Does EWY reflect the whole Korean market?
It holds 77 stocks, but by weight two of them are almost half the fund. The 25/50 rule limits any single stock to 25% on rebalancing dates.
How often do EWY’s weights change?
Every business day. The rule’s limits are applied only on rebalancing dates.
Sources
- iShares (BlackRock), iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (EWY) holdings files, as of Oct. 16, 2026, and as of Sept. 30, Oct. 7, Oct. 9 and Oct. 14, 2026.
- KRX closes for KOSPI, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix (^KS11, 005930.KS, 000660.KS) and U.S. closes for EWY: Yahoo Finance chart data (vendor data, not exchange-published figures).
- SK hynix third-quarter results date: DART filing 20261014800385.
- MSCI November 2026 index review dates: MSCI, regular index review dates.
- MSCI 25/50 rule: MSCI 25/50 Indexes Methodology.
- Early-July weights (about 51.5% for the top two; SK hynix about 27.7%): third-party holdings data as of June 26, 2026, as cited in this page’s July 3 version.
How sure are we?
| Item | Confidence |
|---|---|
| EWY weights on each date | Primary: iShares holdings files |
| Top-2 and top-10 totals | Our addition of iShares rows |
| KOSPI, Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and EWY closes | Computed from vendor price data (Yahoo) |
| SK hynix results date; MSCI review dates | Primary: DART filing; MSCI schedule |
| Early-July 51.5% and SK hynix 27.7% | ⚠️ Third-party holdings data (June 26), not an iShares file |
| Why the weight fell | Arithmetic only (the two fell more than the index); no claim about who sold |
Not financial advice. TheGatBull is an independent publication; nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
Written by Mr.Gat — TheGatBull
Korean market coverage from a Seoul-metro-based operator with 15 years of personal investing experience, who reads the filings in the original language. Every price on this site is the KRX regular-session close (15:30 Seoul); every figure states whether it came from a primary filing, the press, or our own calculation. Drafts are AI-assisted, then verified against the original Korean documents and edited by a human before publishing.
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