TechFlow News, May 27: South Korea’s stock market has surged dramatically, with the benchmark KOSPI index rising nearly 100% year-to-date through 2026—surpassing even the historic rallies seen before the dot-com bubble burst and during South Korea’s industrial boom at the end of the 1980s.
Driven by sharp gains among memory chipmakers such as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, the KOSPI has repeatedly hit new all-time highs, soaring from 5,000 to 8,300 points in just a few months. On Wednesday, the index rose as much as 5.1% intraday. With less than half the year elapsed, its current performance already rivals the Nasdaq-100’s 102% gain in 1999—the year before the dot-com bubble burst.
Nonetheless, few market participants are sounding bubble alarms for the Korean equity market, as they believe the global memory chip demand structure has fundamentally shifted—from its traditional cyclical pattern toward a longer-term, more sustainable growth trajectory.
