After a bruising selloff in July that dragged South Korea's benchmark KOSPI, the world's best performing major market this year, down 24% for the month, the index has staged a sharp rebound in the first few sessions of August. It has gained over 5% or 315 points through Wednesday, extending its two-day recovery to 7%.
Semiconductor stocks led the rebound after major artificial intelligence hyperscalers eased concerns over whether heavy spending on data centres was putting excessive pressure on cash flows. Even so, the key question for investors remains unchanged: can companies investing billions of dollars in AI generate returns that justify those massive capital outlays?
