Investors Buy High Volume of Call Options on iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (NYSEARCA:EWY)

iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (NYSEARCA:EWY) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Investors purchased 90,869 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 47% compared to the typical daily volume of 61,714 call options.

iShares MSCI South Korea ETF Trading Up 10.1%

Shares of EWY opened at $140.07 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $18.24 billion, a PE ratio of 10.35 and a beta of 1.23. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $130.39 and its 200-day simple moving average is $107.27. iShares MSCI South Korea ETF has a 12-month low of $48.76 and a 12-month high of $154.22.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On iShares MSCI South Korea ETF

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of EWY. Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its position in shares of iShares MSCI South Korea ETF by 1,764.2% during the fourth quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 1,897,337 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $184,457,000 after acquiring an additional 1,795,557 shares during the last quarter. Yacktman Asset Management LP purchased a new position in iShares MSCI South Korea ETF in the 4th quarter valued at $111,279,000. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd grew its position in iShares MSCI South Korea ETF by 116.6% in the 4th quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 1,594,998 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $155,066,000 after buying an additional 858,598 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its position in iShares MSCI South Korea ETF by 31.5% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 3,405,205 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $331,054,000 after buying an additional 814,877 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc grew its position in iShares MSCI South Korea ETF by 85.5% in the 3rd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 1,536,532 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $123,076,000 after buying an additional 708,000 shares during the last quarter. 49.22% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

iShares MSCI South Korea ETF Company Profile

iShares MSCI South Korea Capped ETF (the Fund) is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the MSCI Korea 25/50 Index (the Index). The Index consists of stocks traded primarily on the Stock Market Division of the Korean Exchange. The Index is a free-float adjusted market capitalization weighted index with a capping methodology applied to issuer weights so that no issuer of a component exceeds 25% of the Index weight and all issuers with weight above 5% do not exceed 50% of the Index weight.