The bulls and bears have brought in major surprises so far in 2026 as AI boom coupled with the ongoing Iran-US war led to a major reshuffling of the global stock market hierarchy, with South Korea and Taiwan overtaking several long-established Western exchanges.
South Korea’s Kospi has emerged as the shining star among all stock markets so far this year, skyrocketing to fresh lifetime highs last week while most of the global markets crashed. According to a report by The Financial Times, Kospi has more than tripled in less than 18 months, with this bull run outpacing tech-heavy Nasdaq’s bull run in the 1990s, just before the Dotcom crash.
