Goldman Sachs Outlook for the Second Half of the Year: Tech Giants Continue to Fall Out of Favor; Semiconductors Remain the "King"
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Goldman Sachs injects a strong boost into South Korean stocks: another 20% rise in the second half of the year! Market leverage risk is overestimated, and opportunities will spread to six main themes.
According to BlockBeats, on July 6th, Goldman Sachs released its second-half strategy framework for the South Korean stock market, maintaining its 12-month target of 12,000 points for the KOSPI index, representing over 20% upside from current levels. The core support comes from a 320% year-on-year earnings growth forecast and a forward P/E ratio of only 6.65. This indicator is 2.7 standard deviations below its historical average, the lowest since 2009. In the first half of the year, South Korean stocks led Asia with a 92% gain, but this growth was primarily driven by upward revisions to earnings rather than valuation expansion: forward EPS was revised upwards by nearly 200%, while the forward P/E ratio actually compressed slightly. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix contributed nearly 90% of the index's gains, with their combined market capitalization weight rising to 56% and their earnings weight reaching 72%. Goldman Sachs believes this concentration reflects earnings more accurately than a bubble, but market breadth has fallen to its lowest level since the pandemic, and continued gains in the second half of the year will likely lead to increased volatility. Regarding retail investor concerns, Goldman Sachs points out that leverage levels are overvalued. The growth in leveraged ETF size is primarily driven by asset appreciation rather than new leveraged funds. The margin loan-to-deposit ratio is actually declining, indicating that retail investors still hold substantial cash reserves and their asset allocation remains heavily focused on real estate. Goldman Sachs believes that opportunities in the Korean stock market in the second half of the year will expand from memory chips to six main themes: the industrial sector (accelerated defense orders, unmet demand for VLCC replacements), robotics and physical AI (Korea's auto parts ecosystem is expected to become a core supplier of humanoid robots), batteries and power infrastructure (driven by data center energy storage demand), beneficiaries of corporate governance reforms (multiple regulations implemented since July, with over 70% of listed companies having a PBR below 1), reflation trading (semiconductor profit spillover effects driving upward revisions to GDP and extending the interest rate hike cycle), and the semiconductor capital expenditure supply chain (the government plans to invest 800 trillion won in three major projects). Goldman Sachs also warns of three risks: seasonal weakness in the third quarter, technical correction pressure from a significant deviation of the index from the moving average, and amplified volatility due to hedging operations by leveraged ETF market makers. The combination of earnings growth and low valuations makes South Korea the market with the lowest PEG ratio in Asia, and the current valuation misalignment provides significant room for stock selection in the second half of the year.
Goldman Sachs: South Korean stocks are expected to see a broad-based rally in the second half of the year; maintains KOSPI target of 12,000 points.
According to Mars Finance, on July 6th, Goldman Sachs released a new research report stating that the upward trend in the South Korean stock market in the second half of the year is expected to spread from AI storage leaders such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to more sectors including energy, raw materials, and industrial manufacturing. Overseas funds are gradually positioning themselves in the upstream and downstream of the AI industry chain and other independent investment opportunities. Regarding market concerns about a bubble in the South Korean stock market, Goldman Sachs believes that the current increase in margin balances is mainly due to the growth of leveraged ETF net asset value, rather than new borrowing by investors. South Korean residents' assets are still mainly in real estate, cash, and overseas stocks, and the domestic stock market still has room for incremental capital inflows. Goldman Sachs predicts that South Korean companies' overall net profit will increase by approximately 320% year-on-year in 2026 and will maintain a growth rate of approximately 35% in 2027. It maintains its 12-month target of 12,000 points for the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), representing an upside of over 20% from current levels, but expects increased market volatility in the future.
Samsung Electronics' operating profit this year is expected to exceed the cumulative total of the past 40 years, and the second quarter may set a new record for the highest operating profit in the history of global technology companies.
According to Mars Finance, on July 6th, Kim Yong-kwan, head of the semiconductor business's operational strategy at Samsung Electronics, released optimistic signals at a departmental meeting on July 3rd, stating that this year's operating profit will meet market expectations, and adding that "the cumulative profit over the past 40 years of the semiconductor business is less than this year's profit alone." The market currently expects Samsung Electronics' full-year operating profit for 2026 to be approximately 300 trillion won, with a consensus expectation of 84.6 trillion won for the second quarter—if realized, this would surpass Nvidia's record of $53.536 billion in the first quarter of this year, setting a new record for the highest single-quarter operating profit for a global technology company. Kim Yong-kwan also emphasized that the company continues to invest over 40 trillion won in capital expenditure annually and plans to further expand its investment scale to cope with the continued expansion of demand for AI semiconductors. The combined performance of South Korea's two semiconductor giants is equally remarkable. SK Hynix's second-quarter operating profit is expected to be around 64.4 trillion won, bringing the combined total for both companies to approximately 149 trillion won, approaching 150 trillion won. However, some market analysts point out that the storage sector's stock prices have recently shown signs of peaking and declining. Whether they can rise further depends on whether the earnings significantly exceed expectations. The size and duration of long-term supply contracts and the price trend of storage in the second half of the year will be key variables to watch. Furthermore, SK Hynix's ADRs will be listed on July 10th. HSBC has raised its target price from 2.9 million won to 4 million won, believing that the ADR listing will improve accessibility for global investors and could bring a valuation premium of approximately 20%. JPMorgan Chase points out that the second-quarter earnings season will be a watershed moment for reassessing the storage cycle.
Market forecasters predict the Nasdaq 100 may experience volatility in the second half of the year, with AI trading momentum slowing.
According to Mars Finance, on July 8th, data from the prediction market platform Kalshi showed that traders are becoming more cautious about the NASDAQ-100 Index's performance in the second half of the year. Currently, the market believes there is approximately a 50% probability that the NASDAQ-100 will stabilize above 30,000 points by the end of the year, about a 40% probability that it will break through 32,000 points, and only about a 27% probability that it will rise to 33,000 points. This reflects a cooling of investor expectations regarding the sustainability of the AI-driven rally. Meanwhile, UBS released a report indicating that after the semiconductor sector's surge in the second quarter, the market is reassessing the next phase of AI trading. Although the long-term growth logic of AI remains unchanged, market leadership may undergo a structural shift, with funds potentially flowing from overvalued technology stocks to other sectors. Technology stocks may face more significant valuation corrections and sector rotation pressures in the second half of the year.
BNB Chain Releases 2026 Second Half Technology Roadmap: BSC Throughput Target to Double
Odaily Odaily reports that BNB Chain has released its technology roadmap for the second half of 2026, announcing that it will continue to optimize speed, throughput, and protocol stability, and plans to double the throughput of the BSC mainnet again, while developing a new generation of Layer 1 architecture for the next decade. BNB Chain stated that in the first half of 2026, BSC completed several performance upgrades, including reducing the block interval from 750 milliseconds to 450 milliseconds, decreasing the memory finality time from 1125 milliseconds to 650 milliseconds, and increasing the baseline throughput from approximately 2800 TPS to approximately 5200 TPS. At the middleware level, BNB Chain also advanced the construction of AI agents and payment infrastructure, including launching BNB Agent Studio and BNB Agent SDK to support the deployment of self-governed on-chain AI agents; it also continued to improve the Middleware Payment Protocol (MPP) SDK and explored institutional-grade privacy frameworks. For the second half of 2026, BNB Chain has proposed three core objectives: Double the throughput: Through BEP-675, BAL integration and EVM execution optimization, the BSC mainnet performance is further improved, with the long-term goal of achieving a 10x performance increase for the entire BNB Chain; Reduce the impact of network congestion: Improve stability during peak periods through resource isolation, dedicated transaction channels, and a transaction inclusion mechanism based on the FOCIL concept; Lowering the barrier to entry: Optimizing gas fee structures for different industries to reduce the cost for enterprises to enter Web2 and Web3 application scenarios.
Shengshi Technology: Net profit is expected to increase by 336%-461% year-on-year in the first half of the year, with computing power-related businesses contributing significantly to the performance growth.
Mars Finance reported on July 8th that Shengshi Technology announced it expects its net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company for the first half of 2026 to be between RMB 105 million and RMB 135 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 336.02% to 460.59%. During the reporting period, based on the development prospects of the computing power infrastructure industry and its own advantages, the company vigorously promoted the development of computing power-related businesses, achieving initial results and beginning to recognize revenue. These computing power-related businesses made a significant contribution to the company's performance growth during the reporting period and are becoming a new driving force for the company's performance growth. (Company Announcement)