South Korea's Kospi, the world's best-performing major equity benchmark in 2026, has slumped over 30% in just a month, with analysts highlighting how the country's single-stock derivative products tied to chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix wiped off major portions of gains recorded by retail investors this year.
Kospi crashed more than 4% on Monday to close at 6,516. It has now fallen more than 30% from its June peak of 9,386, comfortably falling in the threshold of the technical “bear market” following the skyrocketing rally earlier this year. Despite the latest crash, the index is still up more than 51% in 2026 so far.
