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133 reports, newest first. Every one is built from official Korean data and carries the source and the date the data was pulled. Published between and .
A 75-point stake vanished — and the filing didn't name who took over
Tongyang Life's Chinese owner reported selling its entire stake in one filing, the largest exit in our ledger of Korean ownership disclosures. Of the nine biggest full sell-outs we found, only three say a controlling shareholder changed.
For fifteen straight years, the most common new Korean fund was a derivative. In 2024 that stopped.
Read by establishment year, Korea's fund register has changed hands three times: mixed-bond funds through 2008, derivative funds 2009 to 2023, funds-of-funds since. Derivative codes fell from 1,633 to 238 in one year.
Korea's euro futures are held and not traded. Its yen futures are traded and not held.
A follow-up to our August count, on an axis it did not carry: open interest. Korea's euro book is two-thirds larger than its yen book and turns over about a fortieth as fast. Yuan open interest is 21 to 41 contracts.
Korea's exchange prices the same gold twice. The retail bar is not the dearer one.
KRX lists 99.99% gold in two sizes: a 1kg bar and a 100g mini. Over 49 sessions the mini closed higher by a median of 0.015 percent — and it closed lower on 22 of them. On five days the two moved in opposite directions.
We measured Korea's two oil prices in August. Ten weeks later the kerosene auction is almost gone.
Our August count put the kerosene auction dark one day in six across six years. Over the 49 sessions to 9 September it was dark 47 times — and petrol and diesel have tripled their own dark rate.
Korea lists bonds on three boards. Everyone quotes one of them
Government paper trades on a board of 8 to 12 listings. Beside it sit 270 to 346 general listings and a near-fixed 40 small-lot listings retail buyers use. Over 22 sessions the gap ran 0.41 to 0.95 points.
Korea's exports show no sign of US-tariff rerouting
A popular worry is exporters rerouting around US tariffs via Vietnam or Mexico. Korea's own customs data shows the opposite over the past year: the US share of Korean exports rose 2.6 points; Vietnam and Mexico's shares both fell.
Goldman's KOSPI upside went from 80% to 71.5%
Goldman Sachs kept its 12,000 KOSPI target unchanged. The 'upside' headline moved anyway — from about 80% to 71.5% — because two outlets, writing the same day, measured it against closes one 4.61% session apart.
A stock forecaster's low-end misses keep growing
A Korean outlet scores its own weekly KOSPI price forecasts against what actually happened. Three straight weeks: high forecasts stayed accurate, low forecasts missed by more each week — 2.89%, 6.61%, 8.10%.
The won just hit a 14-month high, two months after its worst point
On 7 September the won closed at 1,355.2 to the dollar — its strongest since 2 July 2025. That is 12.8% stronger than the 1,554.4 it hit on 2 July 2026, almost exactly a year later. The whole year's move unwound in nine weeks.
Korea's air cargo grew 10% in two years. China and Japan grew 3x that
Freight arriving in Korea from China rose 23.8% and from Japan 28.3% between July 2024 and July 2026, while total air cargo grew only 10.0%. The catch-all 'rest of Asia' bucket, still the largest single source, barely moved and lost share.
China's Korea-bound air traffic jumped 48% in two years
Passengers arriving in Korea from China rose 47.7% from July 2024 to July 2026, while flights on that route rose only 21.4% — planes are fuller, not just more frequent. Middle East and Oceania traffic fell over the same year.
Korea's bond curve, one day: 3.47% at a year, 4.64% at thirty — then it dips
On 2026-09-04, Bank of Korea's own reference yields ran from 3.47% at one year to a peak of 4.64% at thirty years, then fell back to 4.54% at fifty. The long end of Korea's curve is not a straight climb.
Samsung Life's rumor answer: not confirmed, not denied
A news report said Samsung Fire and Samsung Life were buying large UK and US insurers. Samsung Life's own DART filing says only that it is reviewing investment targets — nothing decided. It has until October 2 to say more.
Samsung SDI's US battery JV cut its guaranteed debt 45% — the same year it turned its first profit
Samsung SDI cut its guarantee on StarPlus Energy's debt from $3.85bn to $2.11bn (−45.2%), the same filing showing the Stellantis battery venture's income swing from a ₩33.7bn loss in 2024 to a ₩123.1bn profit in 2025.
Cube Entertainment's co-CEO put ₩10bn into his own company — above market
Cube Entertainment filed a ₩10bn private placement, entirely to co-CEO Kang Seung-gon, its own largest shareholder. The price, ₩6,220, is 9.7% above the day's KOSDAQ close — the opposite of the discount typically seen in insider placements.
EcoPro BM's ₩886bn raise: 100% for an unnamed acquisition
EcoPro BM's rights issue creates 9,900,990 new shares at ₩89,500 — a 16% discount to the ₩106,500 close — diluting existing holders 9.2%. All ₩886.1bn raised is filed as 'business acquisition'; no target has been separately disclosed.
HYBE's operating profit was ₩49bn. One expense line was ₩295bn.
HYBE out-earned Korea's other three listed K-pop majors combined in FY2025 revenue — but posted the only net loss among them, ₩254.4bn. The swing traces to one filed line, six times the size of operating profit, that is never itemised.
JYP's 6.75% treasury stock hasn't moved since 2018 — traced to its 2013 listing
JYP Entertainment holds 6.75% of itself in treasury, far above the other five listed K-pop agencies checked. The count hasn't changed since a 2018 cancellation, and its own 5-year rule points back to JYP's 2013 backdoor listing.
HYBE alone is two-thirds of Korea's listed K-pop value
Korea's six listed K-pop agencies have a combined market value of ₩11.56 trillion. HYBE alone is 65.6% of that, more than the other five combined. A seventh name, CJ E&M, sits in DART's registry but filed and traded nothing in over a year.
Korea's margin debt hit a record. It moved to KOSPI.
Korea's margin loan balance hit a record ₩38.6 trillion on 24 June 2026, up 50% year-on-year. KOSDAQ's share fell from 48% in 2021 to 21% today — this year's leverage moved into large-cap KOSPI, not the smaller, speculative market.
Korea's August exports: 68.7% jump, confirmed
A post shared on r/korea said Korea's August exports jumped 68.7% to $98.25bn. That matches the Korea Customs Service's own release exactly — and it's the 15th straight month of a record August-equivalent high.
Korea CPI: mobile fee jumped 26.7%, rest flat
Korea's August CPI rose 3.09% year-on-year. The 'telecom base effect' two papers cited sits almost entirely in one line: the mobile phone fee index, up 26.74% — while landline and internet fees barely moved.
96% of Korean firms pay men more
A census of 2,282 Korean listed companies' own half-year filings: the median company pays men 35.9% more than women. 96.0% pay men more by 5% or more. Only 1.4% pay women more.
KEPCO confirms ₩25tn power-prepay ask, terms unset
Korean outlets reported KEPCO asked Samsung Electronics (₩20tn) and SK Hynix (₩5tn) to prepay five years of power bills for chip-cluster grid buildout. KEPCO confirmed a proposal exists — amount, rate and timeline are still unset.
KOSPI hit 6,835.8, then fell 4% next day
A widely shared post said Korea's KOSPI closed at 6,835.8, up 0.23%. We checked it against the exchange's own data — it was exactly right, for that one day. The next session, the index dropped 3.99%.
Korea's listed firms: median tenure is 6.2 years
A census of 2,839 Korean listed companies' own annual filings: the median company's staff has stayed 6.2 years on average. 1 in 8 companies average under 3 years — and a smaller 1 in 17 average 15 years or more.
28,244 falls: Korea's top workplace injury in 2024
Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labor tracks every reported workplace injury by cause. In 2024, simple falls and slips — not machinery, not falls from height — injured more workers than anything else. A second cause is catching up fast.
From Celltrion to KG Mobility, one flaw repeats
This week we ranked 35 Korean capital-raising filings three ways — buybacks, rights issues, convertible bonds. In every single one, the size of the deal did not predict what it meant for existing shareholders.
KG Mobility's convertible bond dilutes shares 22%
Five Korean convertible bonds filed this week all pay 0% surface interest — the option to convert is the entire return. Potential dilution on conversion ranges from 1.0% to 22.0%, and it isn't the biggest raise that dilutes least.
Korea's ₩107tn offshore filings: mostly new filers
Korea's National Tax Service reported ₩107.1tn in offshore assets this year, up 13.3%. But the filer count rose 9.1% to 7,484 — the average holder reported only 3.9% more than last year.
Meritz Securities: top pay, 2.18x gender gap
CEOScore reported nine Korean firms with H1 2026 average pay above ₩100m. We re-pulled the same DART filings and split them by gender — every one has a gap, from 1.31x to 2.18x.
Korea's biggest trade partner isn't its most vital
Rank Korea's trade by size and one or two partners top every list. But a rank measures volume, not dependence — and the countries Korea sells to are not the ones it buys from. Size is not the same as need.
Celltrion's biggest buyback won't cancel a share
Celltrion's ₩100.0bn buyback dwarfs eight others filed with Korea's regulator this week — and carries no cancellation clause. The three firms that do promise to cancel are the smallest on the list.
183,351 funds isn't 183,351 choices
Korea's registry holds 183,351 funds — sounds like endless choice. But most launches are derivatives and bonds, equity funds are one in ten, and new launches have halved since 2020. A big count is not a wide menu.
Not one Korean region's merchants expect improvement
Korea's small merchants are asked each month if they expect the next to be better. In the latest regional data, all 17 provinces answer no — the index runs 64.5 to 80.6, every one below the neutral 100, big cities near the bottom.
Overtime fell 30% — less strain, or less pay?
Korean regular-worker overtime fell from 11.5 hours a month in 2011 to 8.1 in 2025 — down about 30%. Fewer overtime hours can mean a lighter load or a lighter paycheck, and an hours figure will not tell you which.
What Korea's pension's 107% return really measures
Korea's national pension reports a domestic-stock return of 107% for the first half of 2026. That number is real — and it does not mean Korean stocks doubled. Its label, money-weighted and provisional, is the whole story.
Taxes and transfers nearly halve Korea's income gap
Korea's income gap before tax barely moved in seven years — the top-to-bottom ratio sat near 11. After taxes and transfers it drops to about 5.8. The real story is the gap between market and disposable income, not either number alone.
Samsung Biologics raised 300x more, diluted 11x less
Samsung Biologics' ₩3.00tn rights issue diluted shareholders 4.7%. PhionX raised 300 times less — and diluted 53.8%, eleven times more. Twenty-one filings this week show size doesn't predict dilution.
Korea's small merchants haven't felt neutral in years
A survey just put small-merchant sentiment at a year-high — 95.1 for September. But that is a hope, still below the neutral 100 — and on our reproducible series neither hope nor reality has touched 100 once in three years.
The stock rating that has no downside
Korean brokers issue tens of thousands of ratings and almost never say sell — 89 sell calls in twelve years. When a scale only points one way, what does a 'buy' actually tell you? We count the ratings and question the scale.
Women's workforce share: firm choice or sector mix?
Rank Korean firms by their share of women and apparel tops the list, heavy industry sits at the bottom. But that may sort sectors, not employers — the median listed firm is ~24% women. We show the spread, not the rank.
Youth joblessness fell — good news, or fewer looking?
Korea's youth jobless rate fell from 9.8% in 2016 to 6.1% in 2025. A falling rate sounds like good news — but the same number falls whether young people find work or simply stop looking. One rate cannot tell the two apart.
Korea's import bill rose 18% — but rubber jumped 96% and sugar fell 12%
Korea's won-priced import index rose 18.4% over the year to July 2026 — on average. Behind it: synthetic rubber +96% and fuels near +77%, while sugar and dairy fell. The won moved everything alike; the spread is the goods.
Korea's "biggest company" ranking measures hope, not output
Korea's largest-firm ranking is by market capitalization — a priced bet on the future, not what a company makes, employs, or earns. We call it capital intensity, not productivity. Here is why the ranking misleads.
The pay ranking everyone shares hides three things
A ranking of Korea's best-paying employers circulates as one number per company. But a single figure buries the distribution, the gap, and the hours behind it. We report distributions, not averages — here is what it leaves out.
Korea's rich list doesn't measure Lee Jae-yong. It measures KOSPI.
Samsung's Lee Jae-yong topped Korea's stock-wealth ranking at ₩25.88tn on 2 January 2026 — up 117% in a year. The gain was the market, not the man. So what does a ranking that doubles on a rally actually measure?
Koreans work fewer days, not shorter days
Korea's monthly work time fell 13% since 2011 — but the working day barely shortened (8.33 to 8.05 hours). The drop is fewer days: 21.2 to 19.1 a month.
Korea sells to and buys from different countries
Korea's export map and import map don't match. Hong Kong is 6.7% of exports but 0.6% of imports; Japan is 7.5% of imports but 3.5% of exports.
Korea's temp workers earn 39% of what regular staff make
A temp or daily worker's monthly pay has held near 40% of a regular employee's since 2011 — 1.74m won against 4.47m in 2025. It has barely moved.
An eighth of Korean pay is bonus — lumped into a few months
Special payments are about 12–15% of a regular worker's yearly pay in Korea — and nearly a third of the year's total lands in December and January alone.
Korean overtime has fallen by nearly a third since 2011
Average monthly overtime for a regular worker dropped from 11.5 hours in 2011 to 8.1 in 2025 — a 30% fall, on Korea's own establishment survey.
Koreans now work 13% fewer hours than in 2011
The average worker's monthly hours fell from 176.6 in 2011 to 153.8 in 2025 — a steady 13% drop, measured on Korea's own establishment survey.
Korea's real wages climbed for a decade, then went flat
Korea's real monthly wage rose ~24% from 2011 to 2021 — then stalled. In the four years since, it is up just 0.2%. The 2020s look nothing like the 2010s.
Korea's youth unemployment has quietly fallen since 2016
Korea's youth (15–29) jobless rate peaked at 9.8% in 2016 and fell to 6.1% by 2025 — about twice the national rate. But a falling rate is not only good news.
How many companies are listed in Korea? Fewer than quoted
Korea's stock market has 2,767 stock lines — but 115 are preferred shares (one company, two tickers) and 134 didn't trade today. The company count is lower.
Korea's 2026 trade surplus 'tripled.' We don't buy it.
Korea's trade surplus seems to jump 5x in a year. But exports step up 29% in one month while every partner keeps its share — a measurement break, not a boom.
Korea's trade balance, in one page: who it sells to, who it pays
Korea's trade in one page: it sells to two giants — the US and China, each about a fifth of exports — and buys energy and machines from everyone else.
Only 12 of Korea's 160 stock indices are up since the June peak
The KOSPI is up 125% in two years — a headline that hides the turn. From the 22 June peak, 148 of 160 indices have fallen, the median down 19.3%. The rally was chips; the correction is everything else. As of 3 Aug 2026. Not advice.
Korea's ten biggest trade deficits are oil, gas, and machinery
Rank Korea's biggest trade deficits and nine of the ten sell energy or machines. The tenth sells copper. Oil, gas, and machinery are the import bill.
Korea's 3-year/10-year bond spread stayed positive and widened a little over two weeks
Over nine trading days to 2026-08-21, the gap between Korea's 10-year and 3-year government bond yields ran 0.46 to 0.60 points, ending near 0.55 — never inverted. It widened from the long end: the 10-year rose, the 3-year held. Not advice.
Six bonds were 90% of a day's Korean bond trading
Korea's listed bond market has a price on hundreds of issues but trades almost none of them. On 2026-08-21, six bonds were 90% of all trading value, and government benchmarks were 95%. It held that way every day we measured. Not advice.
One in twenty listed Korean stocks didn't trade a single share
Korea's market is a barbell. On both days we've measured, two stocks were about half of all trading while roughly one in twenty listed issues traded nothing at all. A crowded head, a silent tail. Not advice.
Korea's 10 largest listed companies — and why most rankings double-count Samsung
The largest Korean companies by market value: Samsung Electronics is 29% of the whole market, SK hynix 21% — the two are nearly half. But most rankings count Samsung twice, because its preferred shares list separately. Not advice.
Korea's stock market and trade: the top four are half of everything
How concentrated is the Korean stock market? Rank Korea's stocks, or its export and import partners, and the top four are about half every time — every Gini past 0.9. KOSPI, KOSDAQ and trade, one pattern. Not advice.
Four stocks are half of Korea's entire stock market
Of 2,764 listed companies, the four biggest are 52% of all market value and the top ten are 60%. Samsung alone is a quarter. Meanwhile 1,822 KOSDAQ names together are just 7%. Korea's market is a few giants and a very long tail. Not advice.
The won, not the goods, drove much of Korea's imported inflation
Over the year to July 2026 Korea's import prices rose 18.4% in won but only 11.1% in contract currency. The 7-point gap is the exchange rate, not dearer goods. A March commodity spike lifted all gauges, then partly eased. Not advice.
KOSDAQ is 7% of the market's value but 16% of its trading
Value and trading are two different maps. KOSDAQ holds 7% of Korea's market cap yet did 16% of one day's trading — its shares turn over more than twice as fast as KOSPI's. And 137 listed companies didn't trade at all. Not advice.
Korea is quietly moving onto floating rates — and companies are moving fastest
Over the year to June 2026 the fixed-rate share of won bank loans fell for every borrower: companies 39% to 31%, households 47% to 44%, mortgages 66% to 63%. More of the loan book now reprices when rates move. Not advice.
Diesel is draining off Korea's oil exchange — and the gap between its two order books isn't a spread
Diesel traded on the KRX oil market fell 23% from 2020 to 2025 while petrol held. And the 'premium' on its negotiated book over its competitive one is a few tenths of a percent that flips sign four days in ten. Not advice.
Korea's oil exchange traded half as much fuel in 2026, and its auction has gone quiet four days in five
Daily volume on KRX's diesel, petrol and kerosene markets has fallen sharply since April 2026 — down as much as 74% year-on-year for diesel — and the exchange's competitive auction increasingly prints no price at all.
Korea's producer prices rose 7.7% — its chip prices tripled
The headline producer price index barely moved. Underneath, chip prices rose 315% and memory 291% in a year while forest and vegetable prices fell 20-35%. The 7.7% average hides a violent split. Not advice.
South Korea's biggest export and import partners: two giants, one supplier
South Korea's biggest trading partners: its top export markets, the US and China, are nearly tied near 20% each, but its single biggest supplier is China alone — a quarter of all imports. Four partners are half the trade. Not advice.
Women are 57% of the workforce at Korea's apparel firms and 8% at its steelmakers
Across listed firms the median female share of staff is 24%. But it splits hard by sector — about 57% in apparel, film and retail, under 10% in steel, autos and construction. Where women work divides more than how many. Not advice.
Korea's leading indicator has climbed for a year. Its coincident gauge has barely moved.
Statistics Korea's leading cyclical index rose every month for a year, 100.0 to 105.7, yearly growth doubling to 8.8%. The coincident gauge — the here-and-now — sat flat near 100. The forward signal is loud, the present quiet. Not advice.
Korea's trade surplus comes from a handful of partners — and drains to a different set
Twelve months of customs data: Korea's goods surplus rests on the U.S., Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan, and drains to where it buys energy and parts — Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia. China, the biggest partner, nearly balances. Not advice.
Korea's market carries 20 times more value per worker in finance than in apparel
Divide a listed company's market value by its headcount and industries split hard: a finance worker carries a median 470m won, an apparel or car-parts worker about 20-30m — twentyfold apart. Capital intensity, not output. Not advice.
Five Korean firms filed share buybacks today. Only one is cancelling the shares.
Buyback plans worth up to about 18 billion won reached the regulator on a single day. But the step that actually shrinks the share count — cancellation — appears in just one of them, Fims. The rest keep the stock in the drawer. Not advice.
The better a Korean company pays, the wider its gender gap
Rank listed companies by average pay and the gender gap widens as you climb. Firms paying under 50m won a head give women 75% of men's; those over 120m give 70%. A high-paying employer comes with a steeper ladder. Not advice.
At most Korean listed companies the boss has outlasted the workforce — often several times over
In seven of ten listed firms the chief executive has served longer than the average employee has worked there. The median CEO's tenure is 2.1 times the staff's, and a third run to three times or more. Not advice.
Korea's listed CEOs: the median has run the company eleven years, and hundreds far longer
Across filings for 2,455 listed companies, the median chief executive has served 11 years; 696 have led two decades or more, 77 over forty. We flag and exclude 148 whose reported tenure predates the company itself. Not advice.
Across Korea's listed companies, women's average pay is 73% of men's
Companies file average pay by gender. Across 2,720 listed firms the median woman's pay is 73.2% of the median man's, and four in ten sit below 70%. It is mostly a gap in who holds which job, not pay for the same work. Not advice.
Korea's listed companies cluster in the capital even harder than its workers do
Of 2,364 listed companies that give a location, 85.7% are headquartered in the capital region — Seoul alone holds 46.4%. That is well above the 61.2% of enrolled workers there. The head offices concentrate more than the jobs. Not advice.
Seventy-seven companies hold half of Korea's listed-market jobs
Across 2,790 listed companies that disclose headcount, 1.87 million people work. The ten largest hold 22% of them, the top hundred 55%, and just 77 firms account for half. The median listed company reports 160 employees. Not advice.
Korea's listed market spreads across 61 industries by count, but its value sits in one
No industry is more than 11% of listed companies — electronics leads at 320 firms, then machinery, publishing and pharma. Yet our index work put electronics at 60% of KOSPI's value. The company roster is broad; the money is not. Not advice.
Most of Korea's listed companies are young; nine are older than the republic
The median listed company was incorporated 27 years ago, four in ten within the last 25. But nine reach back over a century — banks and drugmakers whose filed founding dates land near 1900, before the Republic of Korea. Not advice.
Korea's companies cluster in Seoul, but Seoul is where their staff leave fastest
Head offices pile into the capital, yet the capital keeps people least. Median tenure runs about 6 years in Seoul and Gyeonggi but past 9 in Gwangju, Busan and Ulsan. The further from Seoul, the longer people stay. Not advice.
Hiring more women does not narrow Korea's gender pay gap
You might expect firms with more women to pay women closer to men. They do not. From companies under 10% female to those over 60%, the median woman's pay holds near 73% of the man's — the gap barely moves with representation. Not advice.
A third of Korea's listed companies drew an analyst report this year — research piles on a short list
In our archive of 6,372 single-stock broker reports in 2026, 939 of 2,819 listed companies drew at least one. The busiest name drew 100; most drew none. It measures attention, not coverage, and is not advice.
Women hold about 7% of Korean listed-company board seats, and more than half of firms have none
Across 35,004 officers at Korea's listed companies, 7.2% are women. It splits by sector — 10.5% in health care, 4.2% in tech — and 56% of companies disclose no woman officer at all.
In Korea, the brokers that promise the most upside hit their targets the least
Score 19,495 broker targets against the stock a year on and a pattern appears: the more upside a house promised, the less often it was reached — a −0.46 correlation. Hanwha aimed for 45% and hit 17%; DB aimed 29% and hit 49%.
Korean brokers say Buy on four reports in five, and almost never say Sell
Across 6,372 broker reports in 2026 the market rated Buy on 79.7% and Sell on 0.06%. Of 13 houses that rated 200-plus reports, 10 issued no Sell at all. The Sell rate has sat near zero for over a decade.
In every Korean sector, the biggest companies pay more and keep people longer
Split each sector into its market-cap leaders and the rest: the leaders pay 1.2 to 1.43 times more and mostly retain staff longer. But in heavy industry and finance they employ fewer women at the top. A size split, not a stock pick.
In Korea, finance pays about twice what tech does — and tech isn't even second
Take the median listed company's average pay in each sector. Finance sits at 116 million won a year, roughly double information technology's 58 million. IT holds half the market's value and pays in the middle of the pack.
The Korean sectors that keep their workers longest employ the fewest women
Line up Korea's main listed sectors by how long people stay and by how many are women, and the two run opposite: a −0.68 correlation. Materials keeps people 8.6 years and is 13% women; health care keeps them 4.9 and is 40%.
Working for a Korean company pays a quarter more than working for an owner
The national pension bills every employer 9% of pay. Incorporated firms are billed 370,340 won per worker, sole proprietorships 280,520 — the 882,490 Koreans working for an individual owner sit a quarter below the 10.7 million at companies.
How long each Korean industry keeps the people it hires, from 16 years down to under four
Listed companies file their workers' average tenure in their own annual reports. Weight it by headcount and rank Korea's 44 biggest industries: carmakers hold people 16 years, research firms under four.
Korea's oil exchange prints two prices for the same fuel, and they disagree four days in ten
The KRX oil market quotes two prices per fuel — a competitive-auction average and a negotiated one. Over six years they disagree: the negotiated runs below the auction on 37–46% of days, and the kerosene auction goes dark one day in six.
How much of a Korean company's life does its average worker see? At most two-fifths of it
Long tenure and old firms go together at 0.66 — the tenure ladder is partly an age ladder. Measured against firm age, no sector's workers have stayed even half the company's life; research looks churny only because its firms are young.
In Korea, the industries that hold their workers longest are mostly the ones that pay them most
Rank 44 listed industries by how long they keep people and by what they pay, and the two line up at 0.67. Long-tenure sectors pay 1.7 times the high-churn ones — but retail keeps people cheaply, and research pays for talent it cannot keep.
Korean brokerages' price targets are met about one time in five
Score every target against the stock twelve months later. Across 19,495 rated reports, 21.6% of price targets were reached. Brokers promised 38% upside on average; the shares delivered 10%.
The Korean sectors that employ women, and the ones that barely do
Sort every listed company by our sector scheme and take the median female share. Health care is 40% women and finance 35%; heavy industry, materials and utilities sit near 11 to 14%. The gap is roughly four to one.
In Korea, bigger employers pay more — and the pension data shows it rising at every single step.
Sort 554,570 workplaces by headcount and the national-pension bill per worker climbs monotonically: 291,760 won at the smallest firms, 456,315 at the largest. No band breaks the ladder. The size premium is 1.56x.
Shinhan's longest fractional-share list is mostly unbuyable
Shinhan posts Korea's longest fractional-share list, 2,450 stocks. But 2,022 of those are marked sell-only; only 428 can be bought. Line up all eight brokers and just 46 stocks are fraction-buyable everywhere.
Korea has 183,351 registered funds, and the factory that makes them is slowing down.
New fund registrations peaked in 2020 near 6,000 a year and have roughly halved since. What Korea launches is mostly derivatives and bonds — equity funds are one in ten. Among funds that name a country, America outnumbers China two to one.
Korea's import prices rose 9% in the seller's currency and 20% in won. The gap is the exchange rate.
Priced in the currency each contract is written in, Korea's imports cost 9.1% more over the year to June. In won they cost 19.7% more. The 33-point gap between the two indices is not the goods getting dearer — it is the won getting weaker.
In one Korean province, workers leave the payroll fastest — and it pays the least.
Each month a share of enrolled workers drops out of workplace pension coverage. On the tourism island of Jeju it is 4.28%; in research-heavy Daejeon, 3.12%. Across regions, higher pay and lower churn move together.
Every kind of Korean bank loan turned more variable this year. Companies moved fastest.
The fixed-rate share of outstanding bank loans fell across corporates, households and mortgages over the year to June. Companies led it, dropping nearly eight points to 31%. Mortgages stayed the most fixed, at 63%.
Market value per employee ranges 3,100-fold across Korean firms. Almost all of it is an artifact.
Divide a company's market cap by its staff and the spread is absurd — 3,100 times. Remove the holding companies and pre-revenue biotech, and what survives is a 17-fold gap between industries: capital intensity, not what anyone produced.
The older an industry's firms, the fewer workers it loses. In Korea the link is strong.
Across 105 industries, average firm age and monthly separation rate move inversely, with a correlation of -0.61. Banks are old and stable; construction is young and churns. Stability, it turns out, has an age.
Korea's oldest workplaces are its banks. Its youngest are building sites and coffee shops.
Measured by years enrolled in the pension system, domestic banks average 33 and credit unions 32. Earthmoving and electrical-wiring contractors average barely two. An industry's age maps how it is built.
Korea's pay map doesn't put Seoul on top. A shipbuilding city does.
Averaged across every enrolled workplace, the national-pension bill is highest in Ulsan, not the capital. Top to bottom, the regional spread is just 1.21x — the smallest of the axes that move Korean pay.
Korea's smallest firms lose workers 1.6x as fast as its largest. The pay ladder runs the other way.
Each month, small workplaces shed 4.29% of their enrolled workers; the biggest shed 2.66%. Hiring falls with size too. The firm that pays the most also holds onto people the longest.
Six in ten formally employed Koreans work in the capital region. It barely pays more.
The Seoul metro area holds 61.2% of enrolled workers on a footprint that pays a 1.21x premium at most — and less than that once the pension ceiling and Seoul's rents are taken into account. The pull isn't the paycheque.
Korea's convertibles create new shares at a 24% discount. Cash raises, 12%.
Measured against the market price on the day the shares are created, convertibles dilute at a 23.8% discount and cash raises at 12.5%. Control for the 456 companies that used both and the convertible still discounts 7.7 points deeper.
Korea's pension bill sorts 11.6 million workers into a pay ladder. Top to bottom, 2.3 times.
Every employer is billed 9% of a worker's pay for the national pension, up to a ceiling. Rank Korea's 41 biggest industries by that bill per head and imaging-equipment plants sit 2.3 times above employment agencies.
China is Korea's biggest trade partner, but almost none of its surplus
China is Korea's biggest partner both ways — and the two nearly cancel. Its balance is about 5% of the national surplus on a fifth of all trade. The surplus is earned from the US, Vietnam and Taiwan; the deficits are oil, gas and machinery.
One in three Korean listed companies files its headcount in pieces. Forty-two add it up.
The employee table in a Korean annual report carries no required total. Read only the first row — as we did until yesterday — and 482,227 people disappear from a sample of 853,817.
Korean firms with more women underperformed by 17 points last year. Control for industry and the gap vanishes.
Across 2,573 listed companies, staff tenure and female share both look like they predict returns — in opposite directions. They are the same fact counted twice. One survives an industry control; the other does not.
Korean analysts didn't just stop saying sell. They stopped saying hold.
Across 55,580 rated broker reports since 2014, the neutral rating has fallen from 9.7% to 3.3% of all calls. The collapse happened in two steps, in 2018 and 2020, and it shows up inside individual firms — not just in the market average.
China is Korea's biggest trading partner. Its yuan futures are 0.03% of the market.
Across 629 trading days, 99.0% of Korean currency-futures turnover was one contract: the dollar. The exchange also lists 1,272 flexible-dated dollar futures that have never traded once.
A Korean ETF above its stated value falls back tomorrow — unless it holds Asian stocks, in which case it rises
Across 605,072 fund-days, a premium on a domestic or US-tracking ETF predicts a 0.48-point underperformance tomorrow. On an Asia-tracking synthetic fund it predicts a 0.32-point gain. Same number, opposite meaning.
Korean gold fell 31%. Trading in it went up, not down.
Korea Exchange gold peaked on 29 January and is down 30.9% since. Turnover in the small, retail-sized 100-gram contract is running 72.3% above 2025's daily average through the whole decline — the fall drew more small buyers in, not fewer.
Four of Korea's ten best-paying listed companies employ fewer than 200 people
Every listed company files its average pay per employee. Read the ranking without checking headcount and you will misread what it measures — four of the top ten are head offices, not workforces.
Korea's provinces all borrow at the same price — the gaps are empty order books
Seventeen regional governments issue near-identical bonds. In the vintages that actually trade, the widest gap between any two provinces is 3.2 basis points — narrower than the day-to-day swing inside a single province's own bond.
In 76 percent of Korea's large listed companies, men stay longer than women
Companies file average tenure by gender in their own annual reports. Across 1,836 listed firms employing 1.81 million people, the weighted gap is 2.11 years — and it is widest in the industries Korea exports.
KOSPI fell 31% from its peak. It is still up 48% this year.
Korea's benchmark peaked at 9,114.55 on 22 June and closed at 6,257.45 on 3 August — down 31.3% in six weeks. But it ended 2025 at 4,214.17, so even after the drop it is up 48.5% year-to-date. Both are true at once. Not advice.
Korean banks are up 6% since the KOSPI peaked. The index is down 31% because it is 60% semiconductors.
Of 160 tradeable Korea Exchange indices, twelve have risen since 22 June. Electronics is 60.1% of KOSPI market capitalisation, fell 38.7%, and dragged the benchmark with it. Banks, pharma and staples never joined the fall.
Korean brokerages posted 26,051 stock reports in three years. Twenty-six said sell.
A complete census of every company report published to Korea's most-read retail research board finds sell ratings at 0.114 percent — one for every 838 buys. Thirteen of the twenty firms never issued a single one.
Korea publishes two housing numbers. They routinely disagree, and both are right.
Transaction records say what actually sold. The official index says which way the market moved. In a thin market these diverge — and the gap is the story, not an error in either.
Who watches Korea's private fund managers? Less of the market than you would think
A licensed manager can run hundreds of billions of won, trade listed shares daily on its own account, and disclose none of it in a form the public can search. Here is exactly where the record stops.
Why the Korean market numbers you can legally read are always a day old
The data this site publishes settles on a one-business-day lag — not by editorial choice but because that is what the redistributable sources release. One exception changes what is possible.