Korean stocks are coming off their best week since 2008. Where the charts signal they're heading next

The AI trade might just have to change its address from Silicon Valley to Seoul-icon Valley. In this week's column, we're going to deep dive into the charts to help guide our visual investing approach to identify newly emerging capital flows into emerging markets — specifically South Korea. Here are three fun facts about the current rotation: The Kospi hit all-time highs and last week posted its strongest weekly gain since 2008, which was also the last time emerging markets outperformed the U.S. South Korean semiconductor shipments surged almost 150% year over year in the first 10 days of May, hitting a record driven by AI server demand. Samsung Electronics just hit a $1 trillion USD market cap for the first time ever. As patriotic as I am, I'm also an opportunist and a capitalist and will follow the capital flows and allocate our investor capital where it will be best treated. U.S. exceptionalism — in terms of leadership in technology — may have to share its throne with Asia and specifically South Korea, Taiwan, China and Japan. Looking at the first chart of the S & P 500 and emerging markets ETF EEM , it shows a clear outperformance in favor of the U.S. relative to EEM since the 2010 GFC lows. The ratio topped out in 2025 and has begun to reverse sharply enough to threaten the entire 15 year uptrend. …