The threshold for a technical bull market is a 20% gain from a recent closing low. South Korea's Kospi cleared that mark on Thursday, completing a recovery that took roughly one month. The catalyst: the return of the AI trade.
What the designation means
A technical bull market is arithmetic, not sentiment. When a benchmark index rises 20% from its trough, it signals that sustained buying has absorbed and reversed the prior selling pressure. That the Kospi reached that point inside a single month implies concentrated buying rather than gradual accumulation.
Speed matters here. A recovery compressed into roughly 30 days narrows the candidate explanations. Slow recoveries can reflect broad macro improvement, sector rotation, or currency tailwinds working in combination. A move this fast points toward a single dominant catalyst.
What the AI trade's return implies
The AI trade had retreated before Thursday's session. A narrative around AI capital spending that weakens tends to drag the equity categories tied to it lower, and a narrative that reasserts itself tends to lift them just as quickly. The Kospi's one-month trajectory reflects the second of those dynamics.
South Korea's benchmark entered bull market territory on Thursday. One month was all the AI trade's return needed to close the prior gap.