Salient to Investors:

Andrew Swan at BlackRock said:

  • Blackrock has an overweight position in Korea stocks as a lot of negativity is already priced in and the market is so cheap.
  • The South Korean equity market could be in the early stages of bottoming.
  • A recovery in domestic demand may help shrink Korea’s current-account surplus and curb the currency’s appreciation.

Oh Sung Sik at Franklin Templeton Investments said some active funds have upgraded the Korean equity market from underweight.

Daphne Roth at ABN Amro Private Banking said the won’s strength versus the yen poses a risk to Korean exporters, which have Japanese rivals, and sees few catalysts.

MSCI Korea index companies are valued about the same as their net assets, a 36 percent discount versus the regional index, and at the steepest discount versus the MSCI Asia ex-Japan Index since 2007.

Foreign investors purchased a net $4.95 billion of Korean shares this quarter, the most among 8 Asian markets and more than 3 times as big as went into Taiwan, and versus $4 billion into India and $1.6 billion into Thailand.

Read the full article at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/blackrock-buys-korea-stocks-as-valuations-lure-foreigners.html

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