Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One, Periscope Analytics

Brian Freitas

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One

Periscope Analytics

Periscope Analytics focuses on event-driven trades across Asia Pacific and provides comprehensive, timely and systematic coverage of index changes to major Asia Pacific indices in a structured manner.

The analysis includes forecasted inclusions and exclusions to all major Asian indices that have significant amount of tracking assets, including estimates of passive buy/sell flow on the stocks. The service also provides commentary and impact of market consultations, ground rule changes, and other events (IPOs, spin-offs, M&A) that could lead to index changes and passive flow.

Periscope Analytics works with multi-strategy hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, stat arb trading groups and long-only investors that invest and trade in the Asia Pacific region with the data being used to trade index rebalances, avoid pre-positioning and passive flow, and to time entry into and exit from stocks.

Event-Driven Trades Across Asia Pacific

Event-Driven

Korea Stock Exchange KOSPI 200 / Event-Driven

Korea Stock Exchange KOSPI 200 (KOSPI2 INDEX EQUITY)

<ul>
<li>Since short selling was banned in November 2023, short interest has plunged in Korea as shorts were covered. Markets have not done much over the last 16 months though. </li>
<li>Foreign investor holdings have dropped from 32.05% in July to 28.57%. The top 25 stocks bought by foreign investors outperformed the top 25 stocks sold by 128% in 16 months.</li>
<li>There will be trade opportunities across indices, pref/ords, index migrations and deletions, potential market upgrades and overvalued stocks being sold.</li>
</ul>


Since short selling was banned in November 2023, short interest has plunged in Korea as shorts were covered. Markets have not done much over the last 16 months though. 
Foreign investor holdings have dropped from 32.05% in July to 28.57%. The top 25 stocks bought by foreign investors outperformed the top 25 stocks sold by 128% in 16 months.
There will be trade opportunities across indices, pref/ords, index migrations and deletions, potential market upgrades and overvalued stocks being sold.


Korea: Short Selling Is Back in March; Trade Ideas

External broker reports(aggregated public sources), Mirae Asset Securities

Mirae Asset Securities

External broker reports(aggregated public sources)

Mirae Asset Securities Co.,Ltd. provides comprehensive wealth management services. The Company offers fixed income securities brokerage, securities dealing, equity underwriting, and other services. Mirae Asset Securities also deals with mergers and acquisitions, foreign currency, and financial derivatives

Equity Bottom-Up

Meritz Financial Group / Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>Differentiated growth continuesMaintain Buy and TP of W161,000 We maintain our Buy rating and target price of W161,000 for Meritz Financial Group (Meritz)</li><li>Thanks to its continued use of conservative actuarial assumptions, Meritz remains the only player in the industry to deliver sustained growth in new business volume</li><li>The latest actuarial assumption changes also resulted in a substantial increase in CSM</li></ul><p><em>Content is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.</em></p>

Differentiated growth continuesMaintain Buy and TP of W161,000 We maintain our Buy rating and target price of W161,000 for Meritz Financial Group (Meritz)Thanks to its continued use of conservative actuarial assumptions, Meritz remains the only player in the industry to deliver sustained growth in new business volumeThe latest actuarial assumption changes also resulted in a substantial increase in CSMContent is external broker report sourced from online content aggregator through publicly available sources and is displayed below for general informational purposes only. Refer full disclaimer below.

Meritz Financial Group (138040 KS/Buy)Differentiated Growth Continues

Korea / Special Situations, Clepsydra Capital

Sanghyun Park

Korea / Special Situations

Korea / Special Sits, Pairs, Index Rebalancing

Clepsydra Capital

Investigate special situations, pairs, and index rebalancing trades in Korea.

<ul>
<li>The index focuses on qualitative factors like capital efficiency and shareholder returns, but efforts to impose sector balance may have overextended its market benchmark role.</li>
<li>Some companies not fitting the 'value-up' narrative got included, while market favorites were sidelined by sector rankings, which is puzzling given the index's original goal.</li>
<li>Still, with rebalancing cut down to once a year, we should expect the flow impact on the index names to hit harder than initially thought compared to their sector peers.</li>
</ul>


The index focuses on qualitative factors like capital efficiency and shareholder returns, but efforts to impose sector balance may have overextended its market benchmark role.
Some companies not fitting the 'value-up' narrative got included, while market favorites were sidelined by sector rankings, which is puzzling given the index's original goal.
Still, with rebalancing cut down to once a year, we should expect the flow impact on the index names to hit harder than initially thought compared to their sector peers.


All the Scoop on the Korea Value-Up Index

Hedge Fund News, Information and Data, Hedge Fund Alpha

Hedge Fund Alpha

Hedge Fund News, Information and Data

We focus on hedge funds with a bias towards emerging managers, specifically fundamental long-short managers. We are known for a lot of insights and exclusives on hedge fund letters, coverage of industry conferences, and interviews with investors and interesting service providers.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul><li>Bonhoeffer Fund's commentary for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026.</li><li>Dear Partner, Throughout the first six months of 2026, Bonhoeffer Fund 1) continued to sell slower-growth firms, 2) purchased durable, faster-growing firms in temporarily depressed sectors and 3) identified similar opportunities in new industries.</li><li>One ideal way to manage a portfolio is to invest in a set of potential investment winners, let the market work, retain the firms that maintain or increase return on invested capital (“RoIC”), and replace lagging investments with new potential investment winners.</li></ul>

Bonhoeffer Fund's commentary for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026.Dear Partner, Throughout the first six months of 2026, Bonhoeffer Fund 1) continued to sell slower-growth firms, 2) purchased durable, faster-growing firms in temporarily depressed sectors and 3) identified similar opportunities in new industries.One ideal way to manage a portfolio is to invest in a set of potential investment winners, let the market work, retain the firms that maintain or increase return on invested capital (“RoIC”), and replace lagging investments with new potential investment winners.

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs, Douglas Research Advisory

Douglas Kim

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs

Douglas Research Advisory

<ul>
<li>This is our inaugural issue of Korea Corporate Value Up Weekly. There were 12 companies in Korea that provided corporate value up announcements in the past week (ending 14 August).</li>
<li>Corporate governance improvement is one of the most important factors among companies in Korea. By closely tracking these announcements in more detail, this could potentially result in extra alpha generation. </li>
<li>Among these 12 companies, two of them outperformed KOSPI which included GS Holdings (078930 KS) (up 18.3%) and Shinsung Eng (104110 KS) (up 11.6%). </li>
</ul>


This is our inaugural issue of Korea Corporate Value Up Weekly. There were 12 companies in Korea that provided corporate value up announcements in the past week (ending 14 August).
Corporate governance improvement is one of the most important factors among companies in Korea. By closely tracking these announcements in more detail, this could potentially result in extra alpha generation. 
Among these 12 companies, two of them outperformed KOSPI which included GS Holdings (078930 KS) (up 18.3%) and Shinsung Eng (104110 KS) (up 11.6%). 


Korea Corporate Value Up Weekly Review #1 [Week Ending 14 August 2026]

South Korea

Meritz Financial Group Inc is a holding company of Meritz Securities, Meritz Asset Management, Meritz Financial Information Service and et cetera. The Company manages and controls its financial subsidiaries.

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Meritz Financial Group (138040 KS)

Korea: Short Selling Is Back in March; Trade Ideas

Short selling in Korea commences from Monday. There will be a lot of interest in shorting stocks/sectors depending on how they have performed since...

Brian Freitas