South Korea's ETF market showed a sharp split in positioning during the early August equity correction, with retail investors buying for a rebound and foreign investors hedging for further weakness. Between August 3 and August 12, individuals bought a net 162.2 billion won (approximately $114.5 million) of KODEX 200 and 88.6 billion won (approximately $62.5 million) of KODEX Leverage, while foreign investors bought a net 114.2 billion won (approximately $80.6 million) of KODEX 200 Futures Inverse 2X, a double inverse ETF that aims to return twice the opposite of the KOSPI 200's daily move. Over the same period, the KOSPI slipped 0.25%, from 6,595.45 on the July 31 close to 6,579.04. Retail demand also concentrated in covered call ETFs, which hold underlying shares and sell call options to generate premium income for distributions, and in U.S. index products tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. By contrast, single-stock leveraged ETFs linked to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix saw net selling from both retail and foreign investors, even as trading volume rose on heavier selling pressure. Over the latest one-month period, individuals heavily increased leveraged index exposure and cut inverse holdings despite stronger returns from inverse products, a pattern the report describes as classic "rebound betting." Analysts at Shinhan Securities and KB Securities said volatility appears to have peaked and that the correction was driven more by deleveraging, volatility, and supply-demand distortions than by a broad deterioration in fundamentals, though any rebound still depends on normalization in market flows.