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| 2026-01-22 16:09:05
(News Focus) KOSPI-new high
(News Focus) KOSPI briefly tops anticipated 5,000 mark on AI, chip boom
By Kang Jae-eun
SEOUL, Jan. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's main stock gauge reached a new high Thursday for the 13th time since the start of the new year, with the index also briefly breaching the 5,000-point mark for the first time during intraday trading.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 0.87 percent, or 42.6 points, to close at a record high of 4,952.53.
The new milestone follows a world-beating stock rally last year. The index had surged more than 75 percent in 2025 alone, marking the steepest growth among all major stock markets.
The index had also enjoyed a 12-session winning streak since Jan. 2, reaching record highs each day before taking a breather on Tuesday. From the start of last year when the KOSPI stood at 2,398.84, it has now more than doubled.
The country's two chipmakers led the rally. Samsung Electronics rose 1.87 percent on Thursday to an all-time high, while its rival SK hynix advanced 2.03 percent.
"The KOSPI was concentrated on semiconductors up to December, but the rally has expanded to other sectors in January," said Kim Jae-seung, an analyst from Hyundai Motor Securities.
Among other winners was Hyundai Motor. The share price of the carmaker has risen 77.2 percent since Jan. 2, as investors were excited over its new humanoid robot Atlas, unveiled during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Defense shares were also strong, as disputes over Greenland and Venezuela renewed geopolitical tensions.
The KOSPI's new level, which is less than 1 percent shy of the key target set by President Lee Jae Myung during his campaign, comes about six months after Lee took office.
Under his "KOSPI 5000" initiative, the Lee administration has introduced a series of corporate reforms and tax incentives to boost the domestic stock market and resolve the so-called Korea Discount, or undervaluation of local stocks compared to global peers.
The government and the ruling Democratic Party last year passed a revision to the Commercial Act, which aims to enhance investor protection and boost shareholder value, partly by requiring listed companies to cancel stocks that they repurchase.
Financial authorities have also announced plans to provide tax incentives to investors who sell their overseas stocks and reinvest the proceeds in the local market. One of such measures is the "Reshoring Investment Accounts," widely expected to be launched as early as later this month.
Lee said Wednesday that the local stock market was still "undervalued," adding artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors are in a boom of an "unprecedented" scale.
Analysts here mostly agree that the local stock market may still be undervalued.
They say the domestic market has yet to catch up with robust performances expected from the country's major tech companies, particularly its semiconductor makers.
The operating profit consensus for 201 KOSPI-listed companies this year stood at 408.5 trillion won (USD$277.7 billion) as of Wednesday, according to data from Yonhap Infomax.
The reading marks a 52.5 percent surge from 267.8 trillion won tallied six months earlier in July 2025.
The price-to-earnings ratio (PER) of the broader KOSPI market stood at 20.52 on Wednesday, far lower than that of the S&P500 at 31.05, according to data from the Korea Exchange, South Korea's main bourse operator.
PER is a key stock valuation metric showing how much investors are paying for each dollar of a company's earnings. A low PER often suggests that a stock is undervalued.
Some analysts, however, have expressed caution about how the rally is concentrated in certain sectors.
"The KOSPI's bullish run early this year was concentrated on a few large cap shares. Three companies -- Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Hyundai Motor -- accounted for 52 percent of the KOSPI's market cap increase since the start of the year," said Choi Jae-won, an analyst from Kiwoom Securities.
Choi argued the market has entered a state of "technical overheating" and that volatility could increase in the process of resolving such pressures.
Local brokerages have revised up their targets for the benchmark index.
SK Securities raised its top line target for the KOSPI from 4,800 to 5,250 in a report released last week. Kiwoom Securities revised up its KOSPI forecast to a range of 3,900 to 5,200, while Korea Investment & Securities upgraded its target for the benchmark index from 4,600 to 5,560.
"We have raised the KOSPI outlook due to a sharp rise in corporate profits, particularly in the semiconductor sector. The index is expected to rise in the first half, while remaining stagnant in the latter half," Kim Dae-jun, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, said.
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