In short: July's pain concentrated in Korea — a notable share of the retail population margin-called on top of hedge-fund deleveraging — inside "a secular trend that I actually think is still going pretty well for basically two large companies in that country." Once all the pieces lined up: "I want to be a buyer when people are getting margin called and liquidated." (Realized vol ~73 on a one-month look-back.)
EWY is the simplest way for an outsider to own the Korean stock market, which is dominated by a couple of enormous technology companies. In July it was hit by forced selling, not bad news: leveraged hedge funds were unwinding, and a striking share of Korean retail investors got margin calls — meaning their brokers made them sell whatever they held, at whatever price, to cover borrowed money.
That distinction is his entire trade. When holders are selling because they have to, the price stops reflecting the business — and he thinks the underlying secular story for "basically two large companies in that country" is still going pretty well. His discipline is not to guess at it, but to wait until all the pieces are visible (the deleveraging, the margin calls, a 3–4 standard-deviation move) and then be the buyer on the other side of the liquidation. Note the volatility involved: the ETF was realizing about 73% annualized over the month he spoke.
53:09You have huge hedge fund deleveraging, huge retail deleveraging in a secular trend that I actually think is still going pretty well for the basically two large companies in that country. So that's one where once you have all the pieces in place and you can see what's going on, you say, "Look, I want to be a buyer when people are getting margin called and liquidated.
In short: His preferred emerging market as the dollar eventually rolls over: "I would much more be apt to follow South Korea, the EWY" than Latin America. The memory-chip breakout is the mechanism — the sector's move back above equal-weighted tech "has obviously helped the South Korean ETF as well, the EWY, which many people might track."
EWY is a basket of South Korean stocks, and it is dominated by memory-chip makers. That makes it, in practice, a way to own the memory cycle in one ticker.
Newton's case is a chain: memory chips were the last part of technology to break down and have now "broken back out versus equal weighted technology" — meaning they are outperforming the average tech stock again, not just rising with the tide. That directly lifts South Korea, and he says so explicitly.
The second leg is currency. He expects the US dollar to bounce briefly and then "roll over probably into next year," which is historically good for emerging markets: a weaker dollar makes their debts cheaper to service and draws foreign money in. Among emerging markets he prefers Korea to Latin America, which is rolling over on Brazilian politics — "I would much more be apt to follow South Korea, the EWY."
35:40This time, I think it's still sort of a wait-and-see. I would much more be apt to follow South Korea, the EWY [as heard: "EWI"], and look for an eventual further bounce out of China at a time when it really has lagged pretty sharply. — And when you look out to the end of 2026 into say the first half of 2027, do you have any concerns? Is there anything in the back of your mind where you think, "Okay, this could be a real issue?" — No, I don't really.
In short: "We did add 20 bips to the Korean market July 29th before the rally — that was also a good trade." The buy came into a forced-liquidation crash (Kospi −44% from the peak, forward PE below 5 from 12 last year) that he argues was positioning, not fundamentals: Samsung and SK Hynix are >half the index, memory pricing kept strengthening through the sell-off, and the CXMT scare is misplaced.
Korea's stock market fell 44% from its high — not because its companies got worse, but because retail investors had piled into 3×-leveraged funds tracking two stocks (Samsung and SK Hynix, which together are over half the index). When those stocks dipped, the leverage forced automatic selling: 320,000 accounts were wiped out in a single day, and one Irish-listed 3× SK Hynix product lost 96% of its value in a month.
Meanwhile the actual businesses posted record margins and memory prices kept rising. That gap — a market at under 5× earnings on forced selling — is what Singh bought, adding 20 bps of the Korea ETF on July 29, just before it rallied.
Full passage: premium transcript (PDF).
In short: The rare outright sell, reiterated and pressed. "The U.S.-traded ETF based on this index, EWY, was a longtime favorite of this newsletter. But its upside explosion this year led us to put out one of our very rare outright sell recommendations on May 6th when it hit $151. As usual, we were a tad early, but the basic call was spot-on. Since then, EWY has retreated by 17%. Based on its spectacular appreciation, there could be much more to come on the downside." The underlying index by June 18th "had generated more return in the past eight and half months than it had in the prior 45 years of its existence" (Grant Williams' KOSPI TURVY), and its engine — Samsung + Hynix — is already −40% in five weeks.
EWY is a fund you can buy on a US exchange that owns a basket of South Korean stocks — in practice it is dominated by two chip makers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, so it behaves less like "Korea" and more like a leveraged bet on memory chips. Haymaker liked it for years. Then it went vertical: by June 18th the Korean market had made more money for investors in eight and a half months than in the entire 45 years before that. That is not a normal bull market; that is a mania, and the statistic itself is the sell signal.
So on May 6th, with EWY at $151, Haymaker did something it almost never does — issue an outright sell rather than a trim. The fund kept rising for a while afterward ("we were a tad early"), which is what selling into a parabola always looks like, and it has since fallen 17%. Hay's point is that 17% barely dents a move that large: when a market gains more in eight months than in four decades, giving it all back is the historical norm, so "there could be much more to come on the downside." The practical instruction for anyone still holding is to use rallies to get out, not to add.
In short: "We added 20 bps EWY to the portfolio on Korean stability measures (market down 40% from highs)" — a starter-size 20 bps add to the South Korea ETF, buying the government's stability response after a 40% drawdown.
What it is. EWY is a single fund that owns a basket of South Korea's biggest listed companies — the index is dominated by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, so buying EWY is largely a bet on Korean memory chips and heavy industry, plus the country's banks, autos and internet names. One ticker, one country, no need to open a Korean brokerage account.
Why now. Korea was one of the hottest markets of the 2026 melt-up — retail leverage, single-stock leveraged ETFs, an AI/memory mania around Samsung and SK Hynix — and it has since fallen about 40% from its highs, which is a full-blown bust rather than a dip. Singh's trigger is not the fall itself but the government's stability measures: when authorities step in to support a broken market, the tail risk of an uncontrolled decline is reduced, which is usually when the risk/reward on a wrecked index turns.
How he is playing it. Small. 20 basis points is 0.2% of the portfolio — a starter, a placeholder that gets the position on the book and on the radar. If Korea keeps falling he loses very little; if the stability measures mark the bottom, he has a seat and can add. That is the pattern across his alerts: nibble into the crash, size up only once the thesis is confirmed.
In short: A closed Sells-table position — sold 05/06/2026 at $181.98 for +166.87%. The only note this week: the cost basis "has been updated to reflect an earlier recommendation." A booked winner; no forward call.
In short: Flow signal, not a stance: EWY (foreign ownership of MSCI Korea) saw "significant outflows in May" even as Korean equities rallied — the foreign-exit-vs-domestic-bid divergence Paulo uses to explain the confounding KRW collapse into a skyrocketing Kospi.
EWY is the big US-listed fund that holds a basket of South Korean stocks (Samsung and SK Hynix dominate it), so it's mostly bought and sold by foreigners who want Korea exposure. Paulo isn't rating it — he uses its money flows as a detective clue. In May, money flowed out of EWY even though Korean stocks were going up. That tells him foreigners were quietly heading for the exits while local Korean buyers pushed the market higher.
Why does that matter? Because it explains a puzzle: the Korean won (the currency) was falling hard at the same time the Korean stock market was soaring — normally a booming market should pull the currency up. Foreigners selling and pulling their money out of the country is exactly what would push the currency down while domestic buyers keep stocks aloft. It's a warning sign that the rally is narrow and not as healthy as the index level suggests.
In short: Chart 3, "Exhibit C." Paulo is "always eyes peeled for new highs into weak divergence (and if volume and sponsorship/breadth is weak... watch out)" — and EWY is his example: a fresh high he reads as a likely top / topping tell on thin internals. A bearish flag, not a stated short.
EWY is a fund that holds a basket of South Korea's biggest listed companies (Samsung, SK Hynix and the like), so its price tracks the Korean stock market. Paulo isn't analyzing Korea's economy here — he's using EWY as a textbook chart example. His rule: when an index makes a fresh new high but the "internals" are weak — few stocks participating (thin breadth), light trading volume, little real buying support (sponsorship) — that new high is often a trap that marks a top rather than the start of a bigger move.
EWY, he says, is exactly that setup right now ("Exhibit C"): a new high on weak divergence, so "watch out." It's a cautionary flag in a week he describes as broadly painful, not a stated short position — his way of saying risk assets "feel close to something," likely another leg down.
In short: Korea is +90% but it's basically two stocks (Samsung/SK Hynix) — he put out a rare sell and thinks it "gets clocked."
EWY tracks South Korea's stock market, which is up more than 90% this year. The problem is that the gain is basically two stocks — Samsung and SK Hynix (memory-chip makers riding the AI boom). When an entire market is really just a couple of names, it's extremely fragile.
Hay's firm did well owning Korea but put out one of its "rare sells" earlier this year, and he still thinks the market "gets clocked." It's his prime example of how dangerous narrow, concentrated leadership is — the same disease he sees in the US.
35:14And that's where we got lucky because we recommended Korean stocks and they even in our newsletter and they went ballistic because of those two stocks. And — in fact, we actually put out one of our rare sales on the Korean stock market a little early earlier this year, but uh I still think that one's going to get clocked at some point.
In short: Loaded with memory-chip names; ~156% above its 200-week MA vs a previous record of ~54% — a historic dislocation.
EWY tracks South Korean stocks — an index loaded with memory-chip makers (Samsung, SK Hynix). He uses it to show just how dislocated the chip trade has become.
It's about 156% above its 200-week average price, versus a previous record of around 54%. In plain terms, it has stretched far above its long-term trend than it ever has — a historic warning sign of a market that's run too far.
16:31Also, don't forget the Let me give you some stats. The SOXX ETF, right, which is the semiconductors, it's over 54% above its 200-day moving average because of these a lot of the Microns of the world. And then if you look at the EWY, which is the South Korea ETF, which has a lot of these semiconductor memory players in there, it's 156% above its 200-week moving average.
In short: Recap / full sell — "a sale of EWY (S. Korea)," a rare complete-exit call: "there are better ways to express a bullish outlook on Asia, which we continue to have." Exit Korea, keep the Asia thesis.
EWY is a fund that holds a basket of South Korean stocks. Haymaker is making a rare full-exit call: sell it entirely. The reasoning isn't that Asia is unattractive — Haymaker is still bullish on the region — but that there are better vehicles to express that view than Korea. (For Japan, via the EWJ fund, it instead just suggests trimming: the yen is still cheap, but the Japanese stock market has run up a lot.)
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.