South Korea’s stock market is roaring back. A fresh wave of optimism around global AI spending triggered a massive rally on Thursday, lifting the benchmark Kospi into a technical bull market and putting last month’s brutal sell-off in the rearview.
South Korean stocks rallied on Thursday, pushing the benchmark Kospi into a technical bull market. The sharp rebound follows last month’s historic sell-off, driven by a global revival in AI hardware demand and renewed investor confidence.
The Kospi jumped over 4% in early trading, bringing its recovery to roughly 23% since hitting a low on July 30, according to LSEG data.
Index heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix anchored the rally, with the semiconductor giants advancing over 4% and 7%, respectively.
Investor appetite for technology hardware stocks is surging once again, driven by recent earnings from global tech leaders that highlight relentless enterprise spending on AI infrastructure.
The latest leg of the Kospi’s rebound is being fueled by renewed optimism surrounding global AI spending, reinvigorating investor demand for South Korea’s major semiconductor stocks.
“The AI spending boom is far from over,” noted David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, pointing to robust earnings from U.S. tech firms. Both Supermicro and cloud provider CoreWeave experienced sharp overnight surges following better-than-expected financial results.
These developments have breathed fresh life into South Korean chipmakers, whose earnings are tightly linked to global demand for AI memory hardware. Industry heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have anchored the Kospi’s recent advance, extending a sharp recovery following last month’s tech-led sell-off.
The rally in South Korean equities has further room to run as fundamentals strengthen across the country’s dominant memory chipmakers, according to Fundstrat Global Advisors.
According to Mark Newton, head of technical strategy at Fundstrat, gains in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have driven the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF above a key technical level. This breakout confirms a reversal pattern, significantly improving the near-term technical outlook for South Korean equities.
The clearer signal may be coming from memory stocks themselves. After bearing the brunt of the recent technology sell-off, memory shares have begun outperforming the broader tech sector for the first time since June, according to Fundstrat.
Mark Newton noted that this shift is “a good sign in the short run for memory within technology,” adding that memory semiconductor stocks appear to be one of the final major corners of the tech sector to begin turning higher.
See also: CoreWeave and Super Micro Surge Signals Sustained AI Buildout
That shift carries significant weight for South Korea, given Samsung and SK Hynix’s disproportionate market capitalization. Fundstrat noted that the twin recoveries in the Kospi and memory chips are broadening capital rotation back into technology, providing momentum even as select U.S. mega-cap tech stocks face pressure.
While maintaining a near-term bullish outlook, Fundstrat’s Mark Newton cautioned that the rally could lose momentum later this month if U.S. Treasury yields and the dollar rebound. For now, however, he considers South Korean equities and memory semiconductor stocks prime vehicles for short-term risk-on exposure.
