Global Markets: MSCI keeps South Korea in emerging-market index, cites market accessibility hurdles

MSCI has decided to keep South Korea in its emerging-market index, citing that the Korean won remains non-deliverable offshore and that liquidity during extended onshore FX trading hours is still inadequate for developed-market standards. South Korea was removed from the developed-market watchlist in 2014 over FX and market accessibility concerns, and the current administration has been rolling out reforms including round-the-clock FX trading planned from the second half of this year. The KOSPI rebounded more than 3 percent after dropping nearly 10 percent in the prior session, its steepest one-day decline since March, and remains the world's best-performing benchmark over the past year driven by semiconductor and AI-linked stocks.