South Korea Has the World’s Hottest Stock Market: Why Does MSCI Still Call It ‘E

South Korea's KOSPI surged 112% in 2026, overtook the UK's FTSE 100, and ranked as the world's best-performing major index in 2025. Yet MSCI's latest annual review left the country in its Emerging Markets category for another year.

MSCI CEO Henry Fernandez says South Korea's economy is not the problem. Its currency market is.

Fernandez told CNBC that South Korea is "one of the most developed markets on the planet" in economic and technological terms. But MSCI judges countries on how their equity markets function for international investors. On that measure, the Korean won creates a specific barrier.

Fund managers buying South Korean equities must first purchase the won to settle trades. In every other market that MSCI classifies as developed, investors can buy or sell that currency at any hour, from any major financial center. The Korean won trades only during business hours in Seoul.

That constraint matters at scale. Fernandez said a third of all globally managed index assets sit in index funds. Managers running those funds cannot rebalance Korean positions outside Seoul trading hours.

South Korea plans to launch 24-hour dollar-won spot trading on July 6. Fernandez acknowledg

Fuente original: Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/south-korea-world-hottest-stock-084059374.html)