South Korea’s Kospi has staged one of the fastest market reversals of the year, climbing more than 20% from its late-July low and returning to technical bull-market territory less than two weeks after a brutal semiconductor-driven selloff.
The benchmark rose nearly 22% from its July 30 closing low by Thursday, including a roughly 3.6% gain during the session. That recovery came after the Kospi had plunged deep into bear-market territory during July as leveraged positions unwound and investors dumped Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
Momentum continued into Friday, when the Kospi advanced another 2.1% and moved back above 7,000 points for the first time in about 15 trading sessions.
Sandisk Rally Gives Memory Stocks Another Catalyst
The latest leg of the rebound received a fresh boost from Sandisk.
Sandisk shares jumped 13.7% Thursday to $1,528.11 after management laid out a bullish long-term financial model extending through fiscal 2030. The company expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-teens annual rate between fiscal 2028 and 2030 as AI infrastructure continues to drive demand for storage and memory.
Management also expects adjusted gross margins to remain near 80%, an unusually high level for a historically cyclical memory business.
The optimism quickly spread across the sector. Micron gained 4.2%, Western Digital rose 7.3%, while SK Hynix also moved sharply higher. Sandisk has now signed multiyear supply agreements with eight customers, a strategy designed to make earnings less dependent on the traditional boom-and-bust memory cycle.
Samsung and SK Hynix Drive Kospi Back From the Crash
The bigger story remains South Korea’s two semiconductor giants.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix were among the main drivers of the July collapse, but they have also powered the rebound as investors return to the AI-memory trade. Samsung rose about 5% and SK Hynix roughly 6% on Thursday as the Kospi entered its new bull market.
The reversal is especially striking considering what happened only weeks earlier. On July 28, the Kospi dropped 10.8% in a single session as Samsung and SK Hynix fell 13.6% and 14.4%, respectively. The following day brought another violent selloff and a temporary trading halt.
Can the Kospi Rally Keep Going?
The technical definition of a bull market is clear, but whether this becomes a sustained recovery is less certain.
The Kospi is still below its June record, and the same heavy concentration in Samsung and SK Hynix that amplified the rally can also magnify another downturn. Reuters previously noted that the two chipmakers represented roughly half of the benchmark during this year’s extreme volatility.
Still, renewed AI-memory demand, improving investor positioning and Sandisk’s unusually bullish outlook have given traders a reason to return.
For now, the 7,000 level becomes the next psychological test. Holding above it would strengthen the case that July’s crash marked a short-term capitulation event rather than the beginning of a longer downturn.