AI selloff knocks South Korea, Taiwan down global market cap rankings

ET Intelligence Group: The market capitalisation of South Korea and Taiwan had soared at a faster clip in 2026 until the third week of June, buoyed by meteoric rise in stock prices of semiconductor companies.The fall since then has been even faster led by a rout in these stocks amid concerns over the sustainability of artificial intelligence (AI) related capital expenditure.

After zipping past India at the beginning of June in terms of market cap, each of the two countries has ceded ground over the past month.Taiwan has slipped to the seventh spot in the global stock market rankings while South Korea has fallen to the tenth place compared with the fifth and sixth positions in the first week of June respectively.

South Korea's market cap has fallen by 26.8% over the past month to $3.4 trillion.

The latest fall has reduced the year-to-date gain in South Korean equities to 27% from 87% at the beginning of June when the country's market cap had peaked at over $5 trillion.

Taiwan's market cap has dropped by 15% to $4.4 trillion in a month thereby truncating its YTD gain to 33% from 58% by similar comparison.

132752700In contrast, Indian equities have shown resilience over the past month with the benchmark Sensex posting a modest gain of 0.6%.

India currently holds the sixth spot in the global ranking, with a market cap of $5.1 trillion.Read more: 'Wait till payback time!': South Korean retail investors protest as govt apologises after Kospi crashes 40% in a monthFor the South Korean market, concern over a possible tax on unrealised capital gains was another major factor in the market crash. ...