South Korea’s single-stock leveraged ETF market has exploded, and SK Hynix is at the center of it. By mid-June 2026, the CSOP SK Hynix Daily (2x) Leveraged ETF had crossed $10 billion in assets under management, making it the largest single-stock ETF in the world.

When the ETF and the stock disagree

On June 8, 2026, the KIM ACE SK Hynix Single Stock Leverage ETF surged roughly 50% in a single session. SK Hynix’s actual stock fell nearly 8% that same day. The ETF was trading at a premium of up to 86% to its net asset value.

The correction came fast. The following day, June 9, the ACE ETF dropped 27% while SK Hynix’s stock rose 16%. The Korea Exchange flagged multiple SK Hynix leveraged ETFs shortly after launch for exactly these kinds of NAV-to-market-price divergences.

How we got here

Korean single-stock leveraged ETFs tracking SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics debuted on May 27, 2026. The products follow a blueprint that had already taken hold in Hong Kong, where CSOP’s product attracted nearly $1.6 billion in inflows by early April 2026 before the Korean versions even launched.

The composition of SK Hynix’s trading base shifted visibly after launch. Individual investors’ share of SK Hynix trading volume fell by 2.74 percentage points to 29.59%, while financial investors’ share rose by 2.93 percentage points to 12.58%.

Regulators are not amused

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service did not mince words. The FSS criticized these products directly, arguing they benefit brokerages at the expense of retail investors. That criticism has some numerical backing: brokerage commissions generated from ETF trading are estimated between $3 billion and $6.4 billion.

Retail investors chasing leveraged exposure to a single chip stock, in a product that can trade at an 86% premium to its actual value, are taking on risks that the product’s marketing may not fully communicate. The FSS’s position is essentially that the people selling these instruments are doing very well, and the people buying them may not fully understand what they own.

The Korea Exchange acted quickly to flag pricing divergences. A leveraged ETF’s daily rebalancing to maintain the 2x target can require large purchases or sales of the underlying stock near market close, creating predictable windows that sophisticated traders can exploit.

What this means for investors watching the space

For retail investors, the lesson from the June 8 and 9 sessions is concrete: a leveraged ETF can move dramatically against the stock it tracks, and the gap can close in ways that are painful and fast.