South Korea ETF Sees Big Inflows YoY, But Big Outflows Recently

Despite a recent tumble, investors have been pouring plenty of cash into South Korean stocks and the ETFs that track them. Investor inflows into ETFs tracking the Asian tiger economy, which is among the more developed of the emerging markets, reached $911.3 million in the first quarter, far ahead of the pace seen last year when $1.6 billion flowed into South Korea ETFs, the Financial Times reported, citing BlackRock BLK, parent company of iShares, the largest U.S. ETF issuer. As of Friday, the iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund EWY, the largest South Korea-specific ETF had over $5.1 billion in assets under management. At the end of April, EWY had over $5.4 billion in AUM, an almost 50% increase from $3.7 billion in April 2010, according to data from the National Stock Exchange. Based on month-end data from April, EWY is the sixth-largest emerging markets ETF by assets listed in the U.S. and the fourth-largest country-specific ETF. Since flirting with $70 just a couple of weeks ago, EWY has slid to just above $64 as investors have become concerned about sluggish global economic growth, which would weight on South Korea's export driven economy. Subscribers to the ETF Professor's premium service already hit a double-digit winner this year with EWY when the ETF was recommended in the low 60s and subscribers rode the wave higher to the $70 area. Checkout the service at http://www.benzinga.com/etf-professor