A historic rally has put South Korea at the center of the global equity spotlight in 2025, with its benchmark index crushing Wall Street returns—but that same blistering pace is now prompting regulatory intervention.

The World’s Top-Performing Stock Market In 2025

The KOSPI index, South Korea's main stock gauge, has surged more than 70% year-to-date through Nov. 4, 2025, making it the best-performing year for Korean equities since 1999.

This places it far ahead of major global benchmarks, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, which is up around 22% over the same period.

The iShares South Korea ETF, iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (NYSE:EWY), has jumped 88% in 2025, its strongest annual return since the fund’s inception in 2000.

By comparison, the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ), tracking the Nasdaq 100, has returned less than one-fourth of that, illustrating a massive outperformance of more than 66 percentage points by South Korean equities.

Chart: South Korea ETF Rockets ...