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Kospi outperforms all other major global indexes in 2025, as non-U.S. markets overshadow S&P

Published: 30 Dec. 2025, 18:01 Updated: 30 Dec. 2025, 18:24

A screen at a Hana Bank dealing room in central Seoul displays the closing figure for the Kospi on Dec. 30, the final trading day of 2025. [YONHAP]

Korea’s stock market outperformed other major global indexes in 2025, driving gains across non-U. S. markets as investors shifted their focus toward semiconductors, AI and emerging economies.

While the S&P 500 rose 17.4 percent this year, markets outside the United States posted stronger gains. The MSCI All Country World Index excluding the United States climbed 29 percent, marking the widest performance gap between United States and non-U. S. stocks since the 2009 financial crisis, according to the Financial Times on Monday.

“U.S. stocks have been eclipsed by market gains in the rest of the world in 2025, as worries about high valuations, a Chinese AI breakthrough and [U.S. President] Donald Trump’s radical economic policies contributed to a rare year of underperformance for Wall Street,” the Financial Times said in the report.

The Kospi led the rally with a 75 percent jump. Shares of Samsung Electronics surged 124 percent, while SK hynix rose 268 percent, reflecting Korea’s central role in the global AI semiconductor supply chain.

The 2025 Kospi index's rising trend [KOREA EXCHANGE]

That performance marked a stark turnaround from last year, when domestic investors often dismissed the Korean market as stagnant.
Other regional markets also outpaced U.S. equities.

In Greater China, optimism over the AI model DeepSeek fueled gains, with the MSCI China Index rising 29 percent and the Hang Seng Index climbing 28 percent.

“Chinese stocks look set for their strongest showing since 2017, after a technology-driven bull run broadened out to include companies from gold miners to drugmakers,” Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

European stocks gained on the back of fiscal stimulus and improved economic sentiment, while Japan’s markets also posted solid returns.
The S&P 500, meanwhile, posted double-digit gains for the third consecutive year, but it still lagged behind global peers due to elevated valuations, policy uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration and market shocks tied to China’s DeepSeek.

Futures-options traders work on the floor at the U.S. Stock Exchange at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on April 10. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

“Many of the investors I talk to are examining their geographical allocations in light of the big-picture events of the past year,” said Niamh Brodie-Machura, chief investment officer for equities at Fidelity International.

Others in the market are noticing the same trend.

“For years, the U.S. was the only story in town,” said Mislav Matejka, head of global and European equity strategy at JPMorgan.

He said investors should be positioning for this “broadening of performance internationally.”

Still, market analysts remain broadly optimistic about the U.S. outlook in 2026. A Bloomberg survey of 21 strategists forecast that the S&P 500 would rise about 9 percent next year, marking a fourth consecutive annual gain.

Christopher Harvey, a head of Equity and Portfolio Strategy at CIBC Capital Markets, cautioned that several risks could weigh on that trajectory, which include the possibility that the Fed will hold interest rates steady for longer than traders are currently expecting, a push by the United States to raise tariffs on Canada or Mexico or corporate executives who may try to manage down earnings expectations after what has been a solid run.

“That could begin to upset the applecart,” he said.

Harvey expects the S&P 500 to end 2026 at 7,450, about an 8 percent gain.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY PARK YU-MI [[email protected]]