Korea’s Stock Market Volatility Sparks Meme-Stock Comparisons
By Aboki Forex —
South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index is swinging so wildly that analysts now compare it to the meme-stock frenzy of 2021. The comparison may seem extreme given the strong earnings from top chipmakers like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. But the data backs it up.
The Kospi has closed up or down by at least 5% on 20 occasions this year. That includes a 10% plunge on Tuesday. In 2025, such moves happened only twice. This pattern mirrors the retail-driven frenzy that lifted shares like GameStop and Bed Bath & Beyond in 2021.
A major driver of the volatility is the surge in retail buying of leveraged single-stock exchange-traded funds. The dominance of just two stocks also plays a big role. Samsung and SK Hynix now account for nearly 60% of the Kospi’s total market value.
“The Kospi in 2026 is starting to trade with meme-like muscle,” said Hebe Chen, a market analyst at Vantage Global Prime in Sydney. “With Samsung and SK Hynix carrying outsized influence, and leveraged products mechanically amplifying every move in a market with too few obvious targets for that money to chase, each swing in AI sentiment can quickly become an index-level event.”
The Kospi has more than doubled this year, making it the world’s best performing major equity index. Intraday swings have become so extreme that Korea Exchange’s circuit breaker has been triggered four times already this year. That is nearly half of the 10 times it has happened since 2000.
The Kospi 200 Volatility Index has jumped to record levels. It now implies daily moves of about 6% in the underlying gauge.
For context, the meme-stock frenzy started in early 2021. Investors on social media forums like Reddit piled into specific US-listed stocks like GameStop. They largely ignored fundamentals and aimed to trigger short squeezes that pushed prices higher.