Samsung Electronics’ common stock market capitalization surpassed 2,000 trillion won intraday on the 1st for the first time. It marks the first time a listed Korean company has reached that milestone with common stock alone. Its total market cap including preferred shares had already exceeded 2,000 trillion won on the 29th of last month, but this was the starting point for the common stock record alone.
The rally was steep. The stock at one point surged more than 10% intraday, climbing into the 340,000 won range. In the morning, common stock market capitalization swelled to as much as 2,025 trillion won. SK Hynix, the No. 2 company by market cap, also rose, but the gap widened again. At the same time, its market cap stood at 1,689 trillion won, or 83% of Samsung Electronics’ level.
The broader market was shaken as well. The KOSPI moved above 8,800 for the first time in history that day, and the KOSPI’s total market capitalization also topped 7,000 trillion won for the first time. A buy-side sidecar, which suspends the effect of program buy orders for five minutes, was triggered for the first time in three trading days. The catalyst for the surge was semiconductors. Buying intensified immediately after Samsung Electronics announced that it had become the world’s first company to ship HBM4E samples, the seventh-generation high-bandwidth memory.
What the numbers reveal is speed rather than just scale. A market cap that hit 1,000 trillion won in January doubled in just four months. As memory semiconductors emerged as a bottleneck in AI infrastructure investment, the valuation of a stock long dismissed as “perennially undervalued” has changed.
Behind that is a structural shift in demand. As AI data centers expand, expectations that shortages of high value-added memory such as HBM will persist are gaining traction. The trend of the three major global memory companies each surpassing a market capitalization of $1 trillion is part of the same context.
Capital is moving toward markets with a heavy semiconductor weight. In emerging-market indices, the share of Korea’s stock market has grown to a level comparable with Taiwan’s.
The optimism is also reflected in forecasts. Securities firms have raised Samsung Electronics’ target price into the upper 500,000-won range, and expressions such as “610,000-won Samsung” and “4 million-won Hynix” have appeared. The assumption is that the supercycle will not end quickly.
The basis for the bullish view is earnings. The prevailing assessment is that semiconductor profits are rising quickly and valuation 부담 is not severe.
Some foreign investment banks have opened the door to KOSPI 9,000, and in a strong scenario even 10,000. This suggests that the benchmark level of the index itself could move up a notch.
The concern on the other side is concentration. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together now account for more than half of KOSPI market capitalization. The index is rising, but the market experienced by investors feels different.
Even on May 27, when the index set a new intraday high, only around 80 stocks rose while more than 800 declined. The market volatility index jumped to a level comparable to when tensions in the Middle East were escalating, and the overheating indicator, which divides market capitalization by gross domestic product, exceeded 260%.
In the investment industry, there is an assessment that as overheating eases, rotation could spread into undervalued sectors.
Individual investors are another variable. Margin loan balances set a new all-time high, and money flowed into leveraged exchange-traded funds based on the two stocks. Euphoria and anxiety are appearing on the same screen.
There are two signals in this record. One is that memory has firmly become a core force driving Korean stock prices higher. Competition between Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix for the No. 1 market-cap spot is likely to intensify.
The other is risk concentration. In a structure where the fate of the entire index depends on the direction of these two stocks, a downturn in the memory cycle would have an impact greater than the market average.
The polarization between stocks that was hidden when the index was rising will become visible as soon as the cycle cools. The deeper the euphoric money is tied up in leverage, the worse the correction will be.
The key is to turn the enthusiasm into a manageable rise. It is time to consider institutional mechanisms that can ease index concentration.
Expanding reference indices that disperse concentration, such as indices that cap the weight of specific stocks or equal-weighted indices, would help reduce the flow of pension funds and passive capital into one side. Reviewing the methodology used to calculate indices is the responsibility of the exchange.
The flow of individual funds into leveraged products tied to a single stock should also not be left unchecked. Financial authorities and the exchange need to continuously monitor the risks of excessive margin lending and leverage-product volatility, and narrow the information gap so that investors clearly understand the possibility of losses and the structure of the products. Patching the investor-protection levee before it weakens in boom times will reduce aftereffects.
There is also a role for companies and the industry. To reduce the structure in which earnings swing with the memory cycle, how profits earned during good times are allocated to next-generation processes and product diversification will determine the next phase.
The number 2,000 trillion won is less a destination than the starting point of a question: how to manage concentration and volatility.