August Newsletter 2026

Chips, Half a Market

Why global diversification is the

There are two honest ways to invest well. You can work with a fiduciary advisor, like us, whose job is to build the plan and keep you in it. Or you can do it yourself, as long as you have the knowledge to create a good portfolio and the discipline to stay the course when the market drops and the headlines turn loud. Both paths can work. What does not work, on either path, is putting most of your money into one small market. For a family with Korean roots, that usually means Korea.

Picture the same family in two places. One lives in Seoul. The other has settled in Maryland. Both have worked hard, saved carefully, and want their money to grow safely for the next generation. Investing at home, the Seoul family is tied to one economy, one currency, and a market where two companies now make up half the index. From Maryland, the same family can own thousands of companies around the world through the US market, in the world's reserve currency. Same effort, very different odds.

This letter is not a warning about Korea. It is a plain look at why a globally diversified portfolio is the wiser choice, whether you invest with help or on your own. Here are the differences that matter most.

1. Two chips are now half a market.

On May 27, 2026, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together crossed 50.44% of the entire KOSPI's value. Two companies, half the market. On that same record-setting day, 826 of the 920 stocks on the KOSPI actually fell. That is a great deal of weight resting on two names. The US market is far broader: thousands of listed companies across technology, healthcare, energy, finance, and consumer names, so no single pair of stocks can swing the whole market.

2. When the chips turn, the whole index turns with them.

Concentration is a powerful engine on the way up and a punishing one on the way down. In early July 2026, Samsung and SK Hynix fell more than 9% in a single session as a chip selloff spread from Wall Street. When a market is really two stocks, there is nowhere to hide inside it. A globally diversified portfolio behaves differently: while some parts fall, others usually hold, and that is what makes it possible to stay invested instead of selling at the bottom.

3. In Korea, the government's hand is often on the wheel.

Korea banned short selling outright from November 2023 until March 31, 2025, the longest such ban in its history, and it was not the first. The United States has never imposed a blanket ban on short selling every stock. When the rules of trading itself can be switched off and on by the state, you are no longer only forecasting companies. You are forecasting politics.

4. Your pension is a player in Korea, a referee in America.

Korea's National Pension Service is one of the largest shareholders in the country's biggest companies, and its votes have been pulled into politics before. Contrast that with the US Social Security trust fund, which by law holds only special, non-marketable US Treasury bonds and owns no stocks at all. It cannot nudge a share price in either direction. In one market the biggest pension is a participant. In the other it is deliberately kept off the field.

5. The rules themselves can change overnight.

For years Korea planned a new financial investment income tax that would have taxed larger gains at around 22% including local surtax. It was delayed, revived, debated, and finally scrapped at the end of 2024 under pressure from millions of retail investors. In August 2025, a Commercial Act amendment rewrote directors' legal duties toward shareholders. Some of these changes may prove good for investors. That is not the point. The point is that the ground moves. A plan built on this year's tax code can be a different plan next year. Deep, mature markets change their rules slowly and with long warning, which is exactly what a multi-decade plan needs.

6. Leaving one trap does not mean avoiding the next.

Here is the hard part. Korean investors are right to look abroad, but too many carry the old habit across the ocean: they leave a concentrated home market and then crowd into the most volatile corner of the US market they can find. In June and July 2026, Korean retail investors put a fresh 7.65 trillion won into US stocks and watched their overseas holdings fall by about $33.7 billion, while the S&P 500 itself was down less than 2%. The most-bought security of all was a triple-leveraged semiconductor fund that dropped roughly 49% over the stretch. These leveraged and single-stock products reset every day and are not built to be held; the longer you own them, the more they quietly bleed away. We have written to clients about these products several times, and our guidance has never changed: avoid them. Diversification abroad only protects you if you actually diversify.

7. This is exactly where a good advisor earns their keep.

The largest source of an advisor's value is not stock picking. It is coaching and discipline. Vanguard's long-running research puts the total value a good advisor adds at roughly 3% per year, and finds that the single biggest piece of it comes from behavioral coaching: keeping you invested when fear says sell, and disciplined when greed says chase. Morningstar's 2025 study found that investors gave up about 15% of their own funds' returns over the past decade, simply through badly timed buying and selling. That gap is the whole game. The market's return sits there for the taking. Most people trade themselves out of it. Our work is to build the long-term plan, take the emotion out of the moment, and hold you to the plan when the headlines are at their loudest.

There is one more quiet advantage. Building in the US market means building in the world's reserve currency. For a family whose wealth is measured in won but whose future may unfold across three continents, holding a serious portion of that wealth in US dollars is not a bet on America over Korea. It is ballast: a stable base that does not swing with a single country's politics or a single won headline.

The invitation, for both sides of the ocean.

If you are investing from Korea, this is the calmer road. A globally diversified portfolio offers a smoother ride and, over the long run, a better expected return than a small, concentrated home market can give you. Fewer sleepless nights, and more of the compounding that quietly builds real wealth.

If you are already investing from the United States, you are standing on one of the greatest wealth-building machines ever built, and it is easy to take that for granted. Millions of people around the world will never have access to a market this deep, this open, and this inexpensive to enter. Many who do have access still treat it like a casino, chasing the next hot trade instead of owning the whole market for decades. The opportunity in front of you is rare. Used with patience, and with a fiduciary who keeps you disciplined, it is about as close to a reliable path as investing offers.

Two starting points, one destination: own the world, stay the course, and let time do the heavy lifting. We would be glad to show you what that could look like for your family.

Genti Cici, CFP, CAIA

Wealthy & Wise Family Office

Global Vision. Korean Roots. USD Strength.

SOURCES

1. Samsung + SK Hynix cross 50.44% of KOSPI, Seoul Economic Daily, May 2026: https://en.sedaily.com/finance/2026/05/27/samsung-sk-hynix-surge-alone-as-chip-duo-tops-half-of-kospi

2. Chip duo falls 9% in a session, CNBC, Jul 2026: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/samsung-sk-hynix-shares-slide-kospi-tech-selloff-nasdaq.html

3. Korea ends longest short-selling ban, CNBC, Mar 2025: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/31/south-korea-ends-its-longest-short-selling-ban-in-history-after-systemic-reforms.html

4. NPS and the Samsung merger vote, KED Global: https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked201611290002

5. US Social Security holds only Treasuries, SSA.gov: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/investheld.html

6. Korea scraps financial investment income tax, KED Global: https://www.kedglobal.com/business-politics/newsView/ked202411040013

7. Aug 2025 Commercial Act amendment, Legal500: https://www.legal500.com/developments/thought-leadership/client-alert-the-korean-commercial-code-approved-by-the-national-assembly-key-implications-and-what-to-do/

8. Korean retail US-stock losses, Seoul Economic Daily, Aug 2026: https://en.sedaily.com/finance/2026/08/03/korean-retail-investors-return-to-us-stocks-buy-7-trillion

9. Leveraged-ETF deposit tripled to 30M won, BigGo/Seoul Economic Daily: https://finance.biggo.com/news/a9c47648-e883-4f74-bc56-c9f0d1ed3e0d

10. Vanguard Advisor's Alpha (~3%), Vanguard: https://advisors.vanguard.com/advisors-alpha

11. Morningstar Mind the Gap 2025, Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.com/business/insights/research/mind-the-gap