Global X files two KOSPI 200 South Korea ETFs, one hedged to the dollar

Global X Funds put two new South Korea series in front of the SEC after the close on Friday: a KOSPI 200 tracker and a version that hedges the won back to the dollar, a product U.S. investors have not been able to buy since iShares liquidated HEWY. The papers are Form 485APOS post-effective amendments, still marked incomplete, and they ask to become effective 75 days after filing under Rule 485(a)(2). They do not name a ticker, a listing venue, or a management fee. They do not launch anything.

The dollar hedge U.S. investors cannot buy

iShares Currency Hedged MSCI South Korea ETF, ticker HEWY, tracked the MSCI Korea 25/50 100% Hedged to USD Index. Bloomberg's record is flat: HEWY:US was liquidated. iShares' closures list puts the last trading day on August 17, 2020. Its last holdings file showed a single position: iShares' South Korea fund CEWY at 100%. It was a wrapper on the unhedged fund.

Global X proposes a different build. The hedged prospectus says the fund will hold KOSPI 200 25/50 stocks directly, or investments with substantially identical economic characteristics, and overlay one-month won-dollar cash-settled non-deliverable forwards, reset monthly, to offset won exposure. A non-deliverable forward is a cash contract that pays or collects the currency move without exchanging the currencies themselves. The paper says that hedge is intended to reduce, not eliminate, won moves against the dollar.

The won has strengthened against the dollar: the Federal Reserve's noon New York buying rate was 1,346.51 won per dollar on September 4, from 1,475.05 on December 17, 2025. The Bank of Korea raised its base rate to 3.00% on August 27. The Federal Reserve's target range remains 3.50% to 3.75% ahead of its September 15-16 meeting, so U.S. policy rates sit 50 to 75 basis points higher, the gap the filing says will set the cost or benefit of those monthly forwards.

The Korea equity funds still listed in the U.S. include two broad unhedged trackers, Matthews' active book, Direxion's 3x daily fund, and Korea defense, semiconductor, and manufacturing thematics. None of those is a currency-hedged broad-market tracker. Xtrackers' DBKO, which tracked a dollar-hedged MSCI Korea index, is no longer trading.

What the KOSPI 200 prospectuses commit to

The unhedged fund, named Global X KOSPI 200 South Korea ETF in the filing, seeks results that correspond generally to the price and yield of the KOSPI 200 25/50 Index, before fees and expenses. It says it will invest at least 80% of net assets, plus any investment borrowings, in those index securities, typically denominated in local currency, or in investments with substantially identical economic characteristics, including common stocks, ADRs and GDRs tied to South Korean-domiciled components.

The companion, Global X KOSPI 200 South Korea Hedged ETF, seeks the KOSPI 200 25/50 100% Hedged to USD Index on the same 80% test, held directly or indirectly. Korea Exchange owns and develops both indexes and licenses them to Global X Management Company LLC, the proposed adviser. The hedged prospectus describes the parent universe as 200 companies listed on the Stock Market Division of the Korea Exchange, selected to represent the South Korean equity market across sectors. The 25/50 tag is the same family of diversification overlay already on iShares' MSCI Korea benchmark, used so a U.S. fund can hold a market this concentrated. The unhedged filing also states that the fund's investment objective and underlying index may be changed without shareholder approval.

Ticker, exchange, and management-fee fields are blank. The text does not disclose a fee waiver or expense reimbursement for either series.

iShares and Franklin already occupy unhedged Korea

A third broad Korea tracker would join a sleeve that already has a giant, a discounter, and an active fund that does not run the same two-stock weight. Through Friday, September 11:

The filing does not publish KOSPI 200 25/50 constituent weights, so it does not say whether a 200-name Korea Exchange book would leave a holder less concentrated at the top than iShares' 78 names or Franklin's 164. Technology is 55% of CEWY and 49% of BFLKR.

Global X already knows this product shape. Its MSCI Argentina fund CARGT tracks a 25/50 country index and charges 0.59% on $812 million. Its MSCI Colombia fund DCOLO charges 0.62% on $233 million. Those are the issuer's existing single-country template. They are not Korea, and they are not priced like Franklin's 0.09% fund.

A blank fee

The fee line is the number holders of the existing funds can actually use, and it is the one the paper withholds. Franklin already charges 0.09%. iShares charges 0.59%. Global X's Argentina and Colombia funds sit at 0.59% and 0.62%. The filing does not say which of those prices, if any, Korea would get, and it does not put a waiver on the page.

Friday's papers propose both. They price neither.