Capital is voting with its feet.
South Korea stocks are up 126% in 2026. Taiwan stocks are up 73%. China stocks are down 12%. One of the widest performance gaps we've ever seen. Source: Charlie Bilello
South Korea’s KOSPI just exploded almost +8%, making it one of the biggest rallies in the index’s history.
Over ₩600,000,000,000,000 ($400+ BILLION) was added to South Korea's stock market on hopes for an end to the Middle East conflict. A buy-side sidecar was triggered shortly after the market opened. Source: Bull Theory
Tech giant SoftBank is up nearly 73% so far this year
AI demand powered the country’s stocks to an all-time high and helped Masayoshi Son’s company dethrone Toyota after more than 20 years at the top. Source: FT
South Korean stocks have more than quadrupled over the last 17 months, trouncing every other country.
The reason? 2 South Korean companies in the AI memory space, both of which now have a market cap above $1 trillion: SK Hynix & Samsung. Source: Charlie Bilello
The MSCI Emerging Markets index relative chart (vs. the US) looks very different if you take out TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix.
Source: Oxford Economics
“Brazil: the new gold”
Source: BofA
Emerging Markets Ex-China is up 50% in the past year and over 13% so far in 2026. New all-time highs again today.
Source: J.C. Parets @JC_ParetsX
Emerging Market Stocks now outperforming U.S. Equities by the largest margin since 2023
Source: Barchart @Barchart
