Goldman Cuts Kospi Target as AI Trade Sours

Goldman Sachs has cut its 12-month target for South Korea’s Kospi Index by 25%, a sharp reversal after multiple increases during 2026, Bloomberg Markets reported.

The useful number is the cut itself. A 25% reduction is not a trim around the edges; it suggests the bank’s strategists now see materially less upside in a market that had been carried, at least in part, by enthusiasm around artificial intelligence.

Bloomberg attributed the shift to intensifying concerns over the AI trade. That is a plausible explanation, but it is still worth separating a stated rationale from a proven mechanism. A target change is an opinion from a bank, not a cash flow statement from Korean companies. It tells you sentiment among a watched set of market intermediaries has changed, and changed hard.

The other important baseline is Goldman's own positioning. The firm had been raising its Kospi target repeatedly during 2026 before making this cut, according to Bloomberg. That matters because the news is not simply that strategists are cautious; it is that they moved from one direction to the other. Momentum works nicely until it remembers valuation exists.

The RSS summary does not include the new target level, the old level, or which parts of the AI trade Goldman sees as weakening most, so the narrow claim here is the defensible one: a prominent Wall Street bank has materially lowered its view on South Korea’s benchmark equity index as confidence in the AI rally frays.