Asset manager's rare warning reaffirms risks of single-stock leveraged ETFs

Bae Jae-kyu, CEO of Korea Investment Management, has issued a rare warning, urging investors to “pull out of” single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix before mounting losses deepen.

The remarks, made in a now-deleted Facebook post on Monday evening, were highly unusual as they came from the head of an asset management company which had launched some of the very products he was cautioning against.

“I regret having to say this as the CEO of an asset manager that operates single-stock leveraged ETFs,” he wrote.

“With volatility in the underlying shares this high, losses can compound day after day.

Even if the stock itself eventually returns to where it started, the ETF may never fully recover.

No one anticipated volatility on this scale.” Leveraged ETFs are designed to deliver two or three times the daily return of an underlying asset, typically a broad market index such as the KOSPI or the S&P 500.

Single-stock versions take that concept a step further, allowing investors to make amplified bets on the direction of an individu ...