With China banning exports of rare-earth metals to the US – which are crucial for semi-conductors and chips – who will will absorb the demand shock that follows? it’s not unlikely that South Korea could end up being an intermediary in the delivery of chips / rare-earth metals from China towards the US to avoid Tariffs as they already have the infrastructure to manufacture and ship these products.

Should that happen, there might be a lot of value in South Korean equities – they are very closely correlated to the outgoing shipments of semi-conductors from South Korea.

Chart 1: South Korea to boom?