South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index surged into a technical bull market on Thursday, rebounding roughly 20% from its July low as a renewed rally in semiconductor stocks drew investors back into the artificial intelligence trade.
The rebound, achieved in about a month, marks a dramatic reversal for an index that had recently slid into bear-market territory. Chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics led the charge, with both companies benefiting from surging global demand for memory chips used to power AI systems.
A technical bull market is generally defined as a gain of 20% or more from a recent low, while a bear market signals a decline of the same magnitude from a recent peak. The Kospi’s swift move underscores how tightly South Korea’s equity market has become bound to sentiment surrounding AI infrastructure spending.
The turnaround comes as memory chipmakers ride a wave of orders for high-bandwidth memory, a critical component in the data-center hardware fuelling the AI boom. SK Hynix, a key supplier to leading AI chip designers, has been among the primary beneficiaries of that demand.
South Korea’s market has proven especially sensitive to swings in the global technology cycle, with its chip sector increasingly intertwined with Wall Street tech. That linkage has amplified both the sharp sell-offs seen earlier in the summer and the current rapid recovery.
The volatility has not been without cost for smaller investors. Earlier in the year, sharp swings in chip-linked shares prompted South Korean regulators to weigh new limits on leveraged exchange-traded funds after retail traders absorbed heavy losses.
Thursday’s advance builds on a broader resurgence across Asian technology stocks, which have found renewed momentum as earnings from major players reaffirmed robust demand for AI-related products and services.
Whether the rally can be sustained will depend heavily on the trajectory of memory-chip prices and the pace of AI capital spending by global technology firms. For now, the Kospi’s rapid ascent places South Korea among the standout performers in the region’s equity markets.