The Korean Levered ETFs Shaking Markets All Around the World

Retail participation in the stock market is booming. And of course the biggest story in markets is the AI trade, which has created an incredible amount of demand for chips and memory. These two broad themes have come together in the form of leveraged, single-stock ETFs. And while these products are popular in the US, the scale coming out of Korea is enormous. It's a good week to talk about this intersection, because some of the biggest stories of the week include Samsung's earnings and SK Hynix's new US listing. Barclays's Global Head of Equities Tactical Strategies Alexander Altmann has used the word “terrifying” to describe the amount of notional exposure coming from these levered ETFs. He explains to us why that is and we talk to him about why, in such a short period of time, the world of levered ETFs has gotten to be so large, with AUM increasing threefold in Asia alone. He also us gets into how he is thinking through risk management and how we as society — and retail investors in particular — got to be overexposed on equities and why that keeps him up at night.

Read: SK Hynix’s $26.5 Billion Listing Reopens Asia Route to US Market

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