Korean Stock Picks (February 2026) - Emerging Market Skeptic

Korea will potentially be hit hard by the conflict in the Middle East and already the Korean market is taking a hit:

💻 Karnage: Korea Kospi Suffers Biggest Crash In History – Is It A Buying Opportunity? (Zerohedge) Mar 05, 2026

Yesterday we discussed the dramatic move in Korean stocks, which saw the Kospi tumble by 7.4%, its biggest drop since the August 2024 carry trade unwind, and which put a dramatic halt to the historic meltup in the country’s stock market driven almost entirely by memory (Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930 / 005935 / LON: BC94 / FRA: SSUN / OTCMKTS: SSNLF) and SK Hynix (KRX: 000660)) and semiconductor stocks.

However, as we noted earlier this week when we pointed out the unprecedented pile up in the Korea ETF which was virtually identical to what happened in silver in January, just before the commodity crashed, the euphoric investor pile up in the main Korean index was screaming a “get me out of here” warning…

To be sure, as we also warned previously, there were clear signs of trouble even before this week: foreign funds that had spurred the market for much of last year abruptly turned net sellers in February, dumping a record amount of Korean stocks…

Nevertheless, there is some good news for investors not speculating in tech and who have a long term time horizon with these February reform updates:

💻 Korean National Assembly FINALLY Passes the Bill for Mandatory Cancellation of Treasury Shares (Bamboo Works) Feb 25, 2026

On 25 February, the Korean National Assembly FINALLY passed the third amendment to the Commercial Act requiring mandatory cancellation of treasury shares.

According to this new amendment, it requires that companies need to cancel newly acquired treasury shares within ONE YEAR. A SIX MONTH GRACE PERIOD applies to existing treasury shares.

Clearly South Korea equity market’s strong outperformance in the past one year suggests a case for INTERNATIONAL DIVERSIFICATION.

💻 Mandatory Cancellation of Treasury Shares: Final Approval by the Korean National Assembly on 24 Feb? (Douglas Research Insights) $ Feb 19, 2026

According to Money Today, the Democratic Party of Korea will hold a plenary session of the National Assembly on 24 February to mandate the mandatory cancellation of treasury shares.

The Commercial Act’s third amendment requires companies to cancel newly acquired treasury stock within one year. For existing treasury shares, a grace period of 18 months is granted for disposal.

Numerous other local media have also mentioned that the Democratic Party of Korea plans to finally pass this amendment in late February/early March to mandate the cancellation of treasury shares.

The Straits of Hormuz being closed will impact the global petrochemical industry with the Korean industry already needing and receiving help for other reasons:

💻 Positive Impact from Korean Government’s Approval of the First Petrochemical Restructuring Deal (Douglas Research Insights) $ Feb 25, 2026

In response to this severe downturn in the petrochemical sector, the South Korean government approved the first petrochemical restructuring deal on 25 February.

This petrochemical industry restructuring project will offer a support package worth more than 2 trillion won ($1.4 billion) to help companies to weather a prolonged sector downturn.

This is likely to positively impact Lotte Chemical (KRX: 011170), HD Hyundai Co Ltd (KRX: 267250), and LG Chem (KRX: 051910 / 051915).

This is also interesting:

📰 Google Maps wins access to South Korea — one of last countries where app does not work (FT) $ 🗃️ 27 Feb 2026

South Korea lifts data restriction that has prevented US tech group from providing navigation services

The rule, which also affects Apple Maps, has helped local rivals such as NAVER (KRX: 035420 / OTCMKTS: NHNCF) and Kakao Corp (KRX: 035720) dominate the market.

But Seoul has been under growing pressure to ease business obstacles after officials in Washington, including trade representative Jamieson Greer, accused South Korea of discriminating against US tech companies and threatened to raise tariffs.

Most recently, relations have been strained by Seoul’s investigation of Coupang, Inc. (NYSE: CPNG), an ecommerce retailer that is dominant in South Korea but has its headquarters in Seattle. The company is being probed on a data breach in December that leaked the personal information of nearly two-thirds of South Korea’s population.

Here are some Korean market updates:

💻 Korea Value-Up Index: Rebalancing in 2026 and Outperformance Vs KOSPI (Douglas Research Insights) $ Feb 20, 2026

Korea Value-Up Index outperformed KOSPI, KOSPI200, and KOSDAQ in the past year, resulting in further interest in the index.

The announcement of the Korea Value-Up Index rebalance for this year to be announced in the last week of May and the rebalance date is expected around mid-June 2026.

In this insight, we provide a list of top 10 potential inclusions and top 10 exclusions in the Korea Value Up index rebalance in June 2026.

💻 About 10% of Listed Stocks in KOSDAQ Could Be Delisted by the End of 2026 (Douglas Research Insights) $ Feb 12, 2026

There are too many listed stocks in the KOSDAQ exchange. The Korean financial regulators have finally realized this problem and the FSC announced several measures to fix this problem.

About 10% of the stocks listed on the KOSDAQ exchange could be no mas by the end of 2026.

The overall impact should be positive on the KOSDAQ index since it helps the investors to focus on the higher quality companies and the zombie companies to be delisted.

💻 Hanwha Asset Mgmt Launching the PLUS Korea Manufacturing Core Alliance Index ETF (KMCA) On NYSE (Douglas Research Insights) $ Feb 04, 2026

Hanwha Asset Management has launched the process of listing the PLUS Korea Manufacturing Core Alliance (KMCA) Index ETF [SEC Prospectus] on the NYSE in 1H 2026.

KMCA ETF will includes companies in six core sectors: 1) AI semiconductors, 2) batteries, 3) shipbuilding, 4), defense, 5) power grids and nuclear energy, and 6) robots and humanoids.

This is likely to attract additional foreign capital into Korean stocks in the coming months.

💻 Kiwoom Securities Partners With WeBull to Expand the Foreign Omnibus Account System (Douglas Research Insights) $ Feb 13, 2026

Kiwoom Securities (KRX: 039490) announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with WeBull Technologies to expand its foreign omnibus account system.

This would enable overseas investors to trade Korean stocks real time on the WeBull platform without the need for opening a separate account with a local securities firm in Korea.

We expect the users of WeBull platform to be able to start trading Korean stocks sometime in the next 3-6 months.

In February, Douglas Research Insights had these non-paywalled book reviews with the first book being especially worth noting:

💻 A Country Without Shareholder Rights (주주 권리가 없는 나라) – A Book Review (Douglas Research Insights) Feb 21, 2026

This insight is a book review of 주주 권리가 없는 나라 (A Country Without Shareholder Rights), which is one of the best books on the corporate governance in Korea.

There are so much wisdom that are included in this book. The author really goes into details about numerous corporate governance problems in Korea and ways to fix them.

This book was published in January 2024 and it was written by a famous Korean retail investor called Park Young-Ok.

💻 Absolute Principles of Stock Investment (주식투자절대원칙) – A Book Review (Douglas Research Insights) Feb 21, 2026

This insight is a book review of 주식투자절대원칙 (Absolute Principles of Stock Investment), which was written by a famous Korean retail investor called Park Young-Ok.

Park tries to capture his 30+ years of investing wisdom. I thought this book was excellent, especially because Park included a lot of local flavor of his mindset in investing.

This insight provides 11 major highlights of the book ‘Absolute Principles of Stock Investment.’

Korean stocks from a variety of research sources covered in the rest of this post for February (but with up-to-date charts and key data):

[Note: On desktop browsers, an autogenerated table of contents will appear on the left side linked to each stock. I will add those links below after publishing/emailing this post…]

Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceutical Corp, LG H&H, Kolmar Korea, Seegene, BH Co Ltd, Samsung Electronics, SK Oceanplant, SK Hynix, Classys, Samsung Fire & Marine, DB Insurance, Vatech, DIO Corp, Samsung SDI, i-SENS, CS Wind, Vieworks, Soop, Meritz Financial Group, Doosan Enerbility, PearlAbyss Corp, Kakao Corp, Samsung Securities, Korea Investment Holdings, Shift Up, Wemade, Yuhan, Neowiz, Pan Ocean, NCsoft, OCI Holdings, HMM, KEPCO Engineering & Construction Co Inc, Kakao Games, BGF Retail, CJ Logistics, Krafton, Dong-A ST, Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co Ltd, Hanwha Aerospace, ST Pharm, Shinsegae Inc, NH Investment & Securities, iM Financial Group, Industrial Bank of Korea, BNK Financial Group, Woori Financial Group, NAVER, DL E&C, APR, JB Financial Group, GS Engineering & Construction Corp, Amorepacific Corp, SK Biopharmaceuticals, Netmarble, Hanmi Pharmaceutical, Hanwha Solutions, Korea Aerospace Industries, Shinhan Financial Group, KB Financial Group, Hanwha Ocean, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, PharmaResearch, Lotte Chemical, Kiwoom Securities, Koh Young Technology, Hanon Systems, POSCO Future M, Hotel Shilla, Cosmecca Korea, LX International, LG Energy Solution, Hyundai Steel, Samsung Heavy Industries, Hyundai Rotem, Hana Financial Group, Haesung DS & Samwha Capacitor

Readers can decide whether these DeepSeek insights or summary about these stocks are accurate:

🤖 DeepSeek Analysis

Summary of Investment Angles

And as always, this post is provided for informational purposes only (and to make your life easier…). It does not constitute investment advice and/or a recommendation…

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Japan, Korea & Taiwan Stock Index

Frontier & Emerging Market Stock Index

Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceutical Corp

🔬 Chong Kun Dang (185750 KS/Buy) – Atrial fibrillation asset newly reflected in pipeline value (Mirae Asset Securities) 02.27.2026 ⚠️

🌐 Chong Kun Dang Pharmaceutical Corp (KRX: 185750) – Manufacturing, marketing & selling of medicines in Korea & internationally. Prescription drugs (anti-hypertension, anti-hyperlipidemia & anti-diabetics), over-the-counter drugs (Penzal, Prefemine & Modcol) & consumer health products. 🇼 🏷️
Price/Book (Current): 1.14
Trailing P/E: 14.83 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 0.58% (Yahoo! Finance)

LG H&H

🔬 LG H&H (051900 KS/Hold) – More time needed (Mirae Asset Securities) 02.27.2026 ⚠️

🌐🅿️ LG H&H (KRX: 051900 / 051905 / OTCMKTS: LGHMF) formerly LG Household & Health Care – Consumer goods company that manages cosmetics, household goods & beverages business. 🇼 🏷️
Price/Book (Current): 0.75
Trailing P/E: 29.50 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 0.82% (Yahoo! Finance)

Kolmar Korea

🔬 Kolmar Korea (161890 KS/Buy) – Attractive entry point (Mirae Asset Securities) 02.26.2026 ⚠️

🌐 Kolmar Korea (KRX: 161890) – 1st ODM company to exist in the cosmetics industry in Korea. Supports the expansion of K-beauty to the world. 🏷️
Price/Book (Current): 1.91
Trailing P/E: 13.24 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 1.24% (Yahoo! Finance)

Seegene

🔬 Seegene (096530 KQ/Buy) – In-vitro diagnostic revenue of W500bn within reach (Mirae Asset Securities) 02.26.2026 ⚠️

🌐 Seegene (KRX: 096530) – In vitro diagnostic products (molecular diagnostics). Assays & screening products for sepsis, respiratory diseases & STDs. USA, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil & Middle East. 🇼 🏷️
Price/Book (Current): 1.02
Trailing P/E: 3.73 (no forward P/E) / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 7.22% (Yahoo! Finance)

BH Co Ltd

🔬 BH (090460 KS/Buy) – Foldable momentum building; IT OLED-related losses to narrow (Mirae Asset Securities) 02.26.2026 ⚠️

🇰🇷 BH Co Ltd (KRX: 090460) – FPCB (Flexible Printed Circuit Board), an essential part of electronic products used in mobile, notebook, TV, game console, auto display, VR, auto smartphone wireless charger & electric vehicle battery pack applications. 🏷️
Price/Book (Current): 0.89
Forward P/E: 8.94 / Forward Annual Dividend Yield: 1.26% (Yahoo! Finance)