South Korea’s extraordinary stock-market year has survived one of its biggest tests.
The KOSPI was still around 25% higher for 2026 at the start of September, despite falling more than 20% from its peak during July as investors aggressively cut exposure to Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and other AI-linked stocks.
Now buyers are returning, and the fundamental case behind Korea’s AI boom is getting stronger.
South Korean exports jumped 68.7% year-on-year in August to US$98.3 billion, extending their growth streak to 15 consecutive months. Manufacturing activity has expanded for nine straight months as global demand for semiconductors and AI hardware continues to support Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
SK Hynix is also predicting that the shortage of advanced memory used in AI systems could persist through 2030, while Samsung and SK Hynix are generating enough cash from the boom to fund enormous new investment and increasingly large shareholder returns.
Korea’s stock-market story is therefore moving beyond speculation about how large AI demand might eventually become. The boom is already showing up in exports, factory activity, corporate profits and government finances.
The question is whether those fundamentals are strong enough to support another run at the KOSPI’s record highs.