KOSPI · July 31, 2026
The biggest single day the KOSPI has ever had
+17.91%
single-day change vs previous close
What happened that day?
- On 31 July 2026 the KOSPI rose 17.91% — the largest one-day gain in its history
- The old record was 30 October 2008, a bounce in the middle of the global financial crisis
- The index had fallen brutally over the previous three sessions, and this one day undid most of it
- The trigger was earnings from the largest US technology companies, which contradicted the fear that AI spending was about to be cut
- Samsung Electronics rose 26 percent and SK Hynix 29 percent. Both carry enough weight to move the index on their own
- Foreign investors bought a net 7.18 trillion won in a single session, the largest on record
- Even so the index was still 38.63% below its peak. This was a give-back, not a recovery
Sources
Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is written from the sources listed above.