How to read the Korea Theme Dictionary

1. What a theme stock is

In Korea, a theme stock is a listed company that people tie to a hot business or a news event. Semiconductors, rechargeable batteries, defense, nuclear power and AI are the big ones.

Who builds those lists varies. Broker editors pick some, others come from headlines, and many sites never say where their list came from.

This dictionary rebuilds the lists from each company's own words. The only test is whether the company describes that business in the annual report it filed with Korea's Financial Supervisory Service.

2. The Business Description section

Every listed Korean company files an annual report (사업보고서). Section II, Business Description (사업의 내용), is where it says what it makes and sells.

The section usually has seven parts: business overview, main products and services, raw materials and plants, sales and orders, risk management and derivatives, major contracts and R&D, and other details.

Companies write it themselves, so it can lean optimistic. Still, a false statement there breaks disclosure rules, which makes it heavier than a news blurb or a forum post.

3. Rules of this dictionary

Each theme has a word list. The nuclear theme, for example, counts the Korean words for nuclear power (원자력), nuclear plant (원전), reactor (원자로), small modular reactor (소형모듈원자로) and nuclear fuel (핵연료), plus SMR.

We count every appearance in the paragraphs and table cells of Business Description. The risk management part is about currency and interest rates, so we skip it.

If the total reaches the theme's threshold, the company is in. We set thresholds after reading samples, and the numbers are on the rules page.

For each company we quote one sentence with a theme word, exactly as filed. We prefer the business overview, and we avoid sentences where the company praises its own prospects.

Lists are in name order. More mentions does not mean a bigger share of revenue, so we do not sort by count.

4. What to check first

First, check whether the quote describes the company itself. "We produce..." is a business description. "The chip cycle slowed..." is market talk.

Next, check the subsection name. A sentence from the business overview or main products sits closer to the real business than one from other details.

Then open the filing link and read the paragraphs around it. How much revenue the business brings in is in the sales and orders part.

5. Going further

One company often shows up under several themes. Open its company page to see every theme it appears in here.

For balance-sheet numbers, follow the link to our screener for debt-to-equity and ROE. It also works from original filings.

The holiday calendar lists Lunar New Year and Chuseok from public data and links them to the travel theme. That link is our own choice, and the page says so.

6. Common confusions

A company the news calls a theme stock may be missing here. It either never wrote the words in its report or wrote them fewer times than the threshold.

The reverse happens too. Parts and equipment suppliers show up here without making headlines.

Annual reports come once a year, so recent deals and new lines of business arrive late. We do not read quarterly reports or event filings yet.

There are no share prices. Market-data licenses do not allow them on a page that carries ads.