Goldman Sachs strategist maintains bullish outlook on South Korean stocks
Timothy Moe reaffirms a KOSPI target of 12,000, citing an AI-driven memory chip supercycle that he says the market is still underestimating
Goldman Sachs chief Asia Pacific equity strategist Timothy Moe has reaffirmed a KOSPI target of 12,000 in early September 2026, a call that implies roughly 80% upside from current index levels. The KOSPI had already corrected 27% from its June record high before Moe doubled down.
Why Goldman keeps raising its target
Goldman Sachs started the year with a 12-month KOSPI target of 8,000, raised it to 9,000 in June, and then pushed it to 12,000 in September. Goldman projects KOSPI constituents will deliver earnings growth between 300% and 360% for the full year 2026.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for roughly half of the KOSPI’s total market capitalization. Moe’s core argument is that the market is mispricing how long elevated earnings for these firms will last, contending that an AI-driven supercycle anchored to infrastructure buildout is only partway through its first phase.
The AI capex math that underpins the call
Goldman projects US big tech capital expenditure on AI-related spending will exceed $1.2 trillion in 2027, a substantial jump from earlier forecasts of approximately $800 billion. Samsung and SK Hynix hold a dominant position in high-bandwidth memory production, which is the type of chip that AI accelerators require at a rapid pace.
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The KOSPI currently trades at approximately 5.3 times forward earnings, compared to a seven-year historical average of 10 to 11 times.
What investors need to watch
Chinese competition in the memory sector is the structural risk that Goldman flags most explicitly. Chinese manufacturers have been expanding capacity, and while they have not yet matched Korean firms in advanced memory categories, any acceleration in Chinese technological catch-up would compress margins at Samsung and SK Hynix faster than Goldman’s current model assumes.
US semiconductor stocks trade at multiples that already price in significant earnings growth. Korean semiconductor stocks, by Goldman’s analysis, are trading as though the AI capex cycle will end abruptly.