All the way! The storage feast helps drive Korean stocks above 6000 points and soar 42% year-to-date, hitting new highs.

Just one month after crossing the psychological threshold of 5000 points, which was once difficult to imagine, the benchmark index of the South Korean stock market surpassed a new milestone again with a strong momentum injected by the surging global memory demand for the country's largest chip manufacturer. On Wednesday, the South Korean composite index rose all the way, closing at a historic high of 6079 points, up 1.83% at the time of writing. Samsung Electronics' stock price rose by 2.5%, SK Hynix's stock price rose by 1.4% before falling back slightly. Building on a 76% surge last year, the benchmark index has accumulated a 42% increase so far in 2026. South Korean stocks, long considered undervalued by foreign funds, have now become clear winners in the global market. The so-called "AI panic trading" has proven to be beneficial for South Korea, as software stocks play a secondary role in the country, while hardware manufacturers continue to drive the market growth. Corporate governance reform has also propelled this rally, with parliament expected to pass a bill on Wednesday requiring companies to cancel treasury shares. The latest rise in the South Korean stock market is part of the global tech stock surge, with Meta Platforms (META.US) and AMD (AMD.US) signing agreements to purchase chips and computers for running AI models. "South Korea continues to benefit from multiple structural positive factors, with the positive spillover effects of the memory supercycle increasingly spreading to a wider technology ecosystem," said Homin Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier. "Even though the road after breaking through 6000 points is expected to be more bumpy, we still believe that the index has significant upside potential in the next 12 months." The recent Supreme Court decision overturning former U.S. President Trump's tariffs has been seen as a tailwind. Tiffany Hsiao, investment manager at Mathews Asia, expects, "Korean exporters, especially in the electronics and components sectors related to U.S. consumer demand, will benefit from the reduced tariff uncertainty." Preliminary signs indicate that South Korean retail investors, who traditionally favored U.S. stocks over domestic stocks, are returning. This shift, if sustained, could drive the next round of growth. Despite its much smaller economy, South Korea's total market value has surpassed that of Germany and is on par with France. While such rapid surges often raise alarms, analysts remain optimistic, calling it a watershed moment for South Korea. Nomura recently raised its first-half target for the South Korean composite index to as high as 8000 points, citing the memory supercycle, strong profits in the artificial intelligence capital expenditure chain and defense sector, as well as a revaluation of the entities in the AI chain. "If South Korea can accelerate corporate value reform and structural improvements for the Kosdaq, we expect further revaluation beyond 8000 points," wrote Nomura analysts Cindy Park and Dongmin Lee in their report. "The path to 8000 points for the South Korean composite index depends on whether South Korea can achieve commercial law reform and avoid retrogressing on shareholder rights issues."