Kospi Enters Bull Market as Samsung, SK Hynix Surge on AI Trade
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- Kospi jumped over 4% in early trade Thursday, taking the index into technical bull-market territory with a roughly 23% rebound from its July 30 low, per LSEG data.
- Samsung Electronics climbed over 4% and SK Hynix rose over 7%, leading the rally as memory-chip exposure returned to favor.
- Strong earnings from US AI names Supermicro and cloud provider CoreWeave overnight revived appetite for technology hardware, with Trade Nation's David Morrison noting 'the AI spending boom is far from over.'
- Fundstrat Global Advisors' Mark Newton said the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF broke above a key technical level, confirming a reversal pattern 'attractive technically for further near-term gains.'
- Memory shares began outperforming the broader tech sector for the first time since June — a rotation Fundstrat called 'a good sign in the short run for Memory within Technology.'
- Newton cautioned the rally could lose momentum later this month if US Treasury yields and the dollar begin climbing again.
Why it matters: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix carry outsized weight on the Kospi, so the roughly 23% rebound off the July 30 low is being driven almost entirely by a memory-chip and AI-spend revival — the same sector that led the index's historic sell-off is now leading it back, with Fundstrat flagging memory as one of the last corners of tech to turn higher.
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