Kospi surges 5% after 15% rout in three days. What’s fuelling 2026’s top mkt?
South Korean technology stocks staged a strong rebound on Tuesday, mirroring gains on Wall Street, as investors returned to artificial intelligence-related counters following a steep three-day selloff that dragged the KOSPI down more than 15% during the period.Semiconductor heavyweights led the recovery. SK Hynix rose 8%, Samsung Electronics gained 4%, while Seoul Semiconductor surged more than 14%. At the day’s high, Kospi rose 5% to 7,848 or 364 points higher. The rebound followed a positive session in the United States, where chipmakers helped lift broader markets. The S&P 500 advanced 0.3% on Monday, while the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.86%, recovering some of the losses suffered during last week's sharp decline in technology stocks.Investor sentiment also received support from growing excitement around a potential new wave of high-profile AI-related listings. OpenAI recently disclosed that it had confidentially filed for an initial public offering, following a similar step by Anthropic. The development comes just days before SpaceX shares are expected to start trading.The recovery follows a brutal session for South Korean equities on Monday, when the benchmark KOSPI slumped 9% as investors abruptly pulled back from the market's AI-driven rally. The decline highlighted the extent to which the index had become reliant on a small number of semiconductor companies.The benchmark index is now roughly 12.7% below the record high it reached last week. Semiconductor giants bore the brunt of the selloff, with Samsung Electronics dropping more than 6% and SK Hynix falling over 4% on Monday.As investors rushed to book profits, concerns over market concentration became increasingly evident. Much of the KOSPI's rally had been fuelled by a handful of AI-linked stocks, leaving the broader market exposed to a shift in investor sentiment.Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for nearly half of the KOSPI's total weighting and have generated around two-thirds of the benchmark's gains so far this year. Even after the recent correction, the two stocks remain higher by 138% and 196%, respectively, on a year-to-date basis.Despite the sharp pullback, the KOSPI remains the world's top-performing stock indexe in 2026. Driven largely by the surge in semiconductor shares linked to the artificial intelligence boom, the index is still up an impressive 79% this year.Demand for AI infrastructure has accelerated dramatically over the past year as technology companies around the world race to develop advanced AI models and expand computing capacity. That trend has sparked strong demand for high-bandwidth memory chips, prompting investors to pour money into South Korean chipmakers that occupy a critical position in the global AI supply chain.Sensex, Nifty today: Catch all the LIVE stock market action here(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)