EWY gives back half its bounce, and the daily rotation resumes after a multi-day gap
One analyst's qualitative review. Not backtested alpha. Not trade advice.
What I'm watching
- EWY $166.09, 1m -10.1%, DD -24.23%, 52w-pos 64.5%: worse than the Aug 5 read ($171.14, DD -21.93%), which had itself recovered about a third of the way off the Jul 29 crash low (DD -26.46%). This week's move gives back roughly half of that recovery.
- EWT $103.09, 1m -1.87%, DD -7.57%, 52w-pos 84.9%: held and improved slightly from Aug 5 ($102.21, DD -8.36%), did not follow EWY down.
- EWJ $96.90, 1m 3.61%, DD -0.07%, 52w-pos 99.7%: continued strength, effectively back at 52-week highs.
- EWN $69.21, 1m 1.67%, DD -2.3%: flat, same as every prior read through this whole episode.
- DXY 99.604 (flat), VIX 14.9 (low): regime holds "cautious," VIX now below both the Aug 2 read (15.99) and well below the Jul 20 panel-wobble read (18.47).
- No daily entry exists for Aug 6, 7, or 8. The rotation was paused for scheduled work outside this series and has now resumed; today's entry is the first since the gap.
What changed / what matters
The Aug 5 tech-ai entry left an explicit revise condition: EWT or EWY rolling back over toward their Jul 29 lows without a fresh news trigger would say the prior week's bounce was a dead-cat rally rather than stabilization. EWY has partially met that condition. Its drawdown widened from -21.93% back to -24.23%, and the price fell from $171.14 to $166.09, about 3% over four sessions, with no SK Hynix or Samsung news found to explain it (no new IPTM action, no fresh capex or export-control filing turned up in this read). That is a real pullback, not noise, but it stopped well short of retracing all the way to the Jul 29 low of -26.46% DD / $161.20. EWT, by contrast, held its Aug 5 level and improved slightly, and EWJ kept climbing to a fresh high in the series. That split matters: if the Aug 5 "contagion, not fundamentals" read were wrong, EWT should have rolled over alongside EWY. It didn't. The more consistent story is that EWY's concentration risk (Samsung and SK Hynix are roughly half the KOSPI) is still repricing on its own timeline while the broader regional read holds, which argues for the Jul 29 avoid call on EWY specifically rather than a re-widening of the panel-wide caution from two weeks ago.
The rotation gap is the second structural item worth flagging. Combined with the Aug 2 entry's note that no Saturday synthesis has run since May, docs/picks/LATEST.md is now roughly 14 weeks stale (still dated 2026-05-02, week 2026-18). The daily entries have kept producing usable reads in between the gaps, but the weekly synthesis mechanism itself needs attention from whoever next has the mandate to rebuild it, not just another flag in a catch-up entry.
Candidate picks within this theme
Sunday does not rank picks; carrying the week forward with one revision:
- EWY (Korea) — hold the Jul 29 avoid, do not upgrade; the Aug 5 recovery gave back about half its gain with no confirming news, undercutting last week's tentative reaffirm.
- EWT (Taiwan) — hold the Aug 5 accumulate-again call; DD improved slightly and did not follow EWY's reversal.
- EWJ (Japan) — hold top conviction; back near 52-week highs, unaffected by the Korea-specific move.
- EWN (Netherlands) — hold; flat throughout, still carrying the Jul 24 MOFCOM export-control tail risk noted on Aug 5.
- INDA (India) — continue full pace; 1m +2.75%, unrelated to the chip-chain episode.
What I'd revise if I saw
EWY breaking below the Jul 29 low ($161.20 / DD -26.46%) would confirm the dead-cat-rally read outright; EWY re-tightening back toward the Aug 5 level without a news trigger would say this week's pullback was itself noise inside a short window.
Cross-references
- Previous entry (this theme):
docs/thinking/2026-08-02-sunday-catchup-ewj-revise-fires-rotation-gap.md - EWY/EWT/EWJ stabilization read being retested:
docs/thinking/2026-08-05-tech-ai-korea-taiwan-bounce-back-stabilization-test.md - EWY crash origin, Jul 29 low:
docs/thinking/2026-07-29-tech-ai-sk-hynix-samsung-crash-fundamentals-intact.md - Stale synthesis:
docs/picks/LATEST.md(dated 2026-05-02, week 2026-18) - Data:
/api/country/KR,/api/country/TW,/api/country/JP,.cache/picks/etf-stats.json,.cache/regime.json