South Korea's stock rally is outpacing the rest of the world
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If the U.S. stock market is now largely a bet on the AI boom, then South Korea's market is a supersized, turbocharged version of that wager.
Why it matters: Investors' optimism about the promise of AI is global, but such a concentration of wealth in one sector could be risky in a market downturn.
Zoom in: A rally in South Korean AI stocks has now lifted Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest maker of memory chips, to a $1 trillion-plus market value, becoming the second Asian company after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to join that elite club, which also includes Nvidia, Apple and Alphabet, among others.
By the numbers: The gains in Samsung (up 111% this year) and rival memory chip maker SK Hynix (up 144%) have helped lift South Korea's benchmark KOSPI index to new highs.
- The two semiconductor companies account for more than 40% of the KOSPI.
- The index is now up 78% this year, outpacing by far every other major market in the world. Taiwan's blue-chip index is the closest, up 45% this year. (The S&P 500 is up nearly 8% year to date.)
- The KOSPI has already overtaken its own world-beating, record-breaking advance of 2025, when it ended the year up 76%.
