An exchange traded fund to track the performance of Korea's entertainment companies will be launched in stock markets in the U.S. and Europe. Shown is the K-pop girl group Aespa on April 23 waving to the audience at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California. (Yonhap News)
By Yoon Hee Young
An exchange traded fund (ETF) to track the business performance of Korea's entertainment companies will be launched in securities markets in the U.S. and Europe.
Bloomberg on April 21 said in the article headlined "K-pop's ubiquitous influence will reach into the world of ETFs" that Exchange Traded Concepts, a U.S.-based investment adviser specializing in ETFs, will launch a K-pop ETF to track the stock index of Korean entertainment companies.
An ETF is an investment fund that can be traded like a stock and whose return depends on the movement of a specific stock index.
Bloomberg said, "If approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, it would be the first ETF in the U.S. or Europe investing in firms benefiting from Korean pop music." It added that the ubiquitous influence of K-pop will extend into the ETF world.
The ETF's ticker, or a stock symbol used to identify shares of a particular stock, is "KPOP." The index is provided by CT Investments, a subsidiary of the Korean intellectual property company Contents Technologies. ETC will invest at least 80% of its net assets in securities based on the index screening for companies producing Korean music, movies, dramas and other entertainment.
Based in Oklahoma, ETC is a small ETF issuer that managed assets worth an estimated USD 8.6 billion (KRW 10.7 trillion) as of late February.
Henry Jim, an ETF analyst at the business news service's data research and analysis arm Bloomberg Intelligence, said the K-pop ETF is part of the trend of such funds looking at "increasingly niche themes."
hyyoon@korea.kr
