Goldman Sachs' Second-Half 2026 Asia Outlook: Overweight North Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China A-Shares with KOSPI Target of 12,000 and Earnings Growth Driving the Rally

Goldman Sachs published its second-half 2026 Asia equity and commodities outlook in a series of notes in June 2026. The bank is heavily overweight North Asian markets, led by South Korea and Taiwan, and sees earnings growth — not valuation expansion — as the dominant driver for the rest of the year . Below is a fact-checked breakdown of the specific targets, drivers, sector calls, and commodity revisions.

Index targets

Index	Goldman Sachs 12-month target	Source
KOSPI (South Korea)	12,000	Raised from 9,000 in early June 2026
TWSE (Taiwan)	51,000 (12-month target)	Upgraded to overweight alongside the KOSPI target
CSI 300 (China A-shares)	5,500	Raised for the second time in 2026
TOPIX (Japan)	4,400	Raised from 4,200 on June 1, 2026, implying ~11% upside
MXAPJ (MSCI Asia ex-Japan)	1,080	Raised from 690 in a September 2025 note ; the second-half Asia outlook reinforced this higher target

The Taiwan TWSE target of 51,000 is referenced in the June 3 Bloomberg report . The CSI 300 target of 5,500 was cited on Sina Finance and reiterated in the CNBC second-half outlook . The MXAPJ target of 1,080 is consistent with the updated mid-2026 regional target, though an older PDF (Sept 2025) showed 690 .

Overweight market recommendations

Goldman retained overweight ratings on four North Asian markets :

• South Korea — highest-conviction market in the region
• Taiwan — upgraded from neutral to overweight on June 3
• Japan (TOPIX) — overweight, with a raised earnings forecast
• China A-shares — overweight, citing better Sharpe ratios, hard-tech AI exposure, and liquidity support

Key drivers behind the bullish stance

• AI infrastructure spending — The AI boom is driving profits in tech-heavy North Asian markets .
• Memory chip supercycle — Goldman expects the semiconductor memory cycle to last three to five years, with a record supply shortfall in both DRAM and NAND . The 2026 DRAM supply-demand gap is forecast at a deficit of 4.9%, the most severe shortage in 15 years .
• Fiscal capacity — North Asian economies are more insulated from the Middle East oil shock .
• Earnings growth, not multiple expansion — "Stick with the winners" because earnings momentum is the primary return driver .

Overweight sector recommendations

Goldman is overweight tech hardware, capital goods, and banking across the region . The bank also prefers semiconductors and hard-tech AI over internet/platform names .

Commodity forecasts

• Gold — Year-end 2026 target cut to $4,900/oz (from an earlier ~$5,400/oz) due to the removal of Fed rate-cut expectations . The bank now expects no Fed rate cuts in 2026 .
• Copper — Goldman maintains a long-copper / short-aluminum stance and expects copper to remain the favored industrial metal. The bank's most recent public baseline was ~$11,771/mt, and it expects LME copper to remain in a range of $10,000-$11,000 in 2026 . In a late January 2026 report, Goldman raised its 2026 copper price forecast by 7% to $12,200 per ton . The figure $13,735/mt does not appear in any available source and could not be confirmed.
• Oil — Goldman projects a 2026 oil surplus .

South Korean corporate earnings growth

Goldman's Asia chief equity strategist Tim Moe initially forecast Korean 2026 EPS growth at 300% . By June 3, 2026, he raised that to 320% after consensus estimates more than doubled . The driver is a record semiconductor memory supply shortfall that Goldman believes the market is mispricing .

"The demand for memory semiconductors has created a supply shortfall that Goldman calls a "memory chip supercycle," and it forecasts this will generate the strongest annual profit expansion in any Asian market since the recovery from the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis."

Goldman noted that South Korean stocks trade at only 5 times forward earnings, suggesting the market is skeptical of the longevity of this supply-demand cycle .

Summary of key caveats

• The Taiwan TWSE target (51,000) is referenced in financial news but has not been published directly on Goldman's official site.
• The MXAPJ target of 1,080 is an updated mid-year figure; an older note from September 2025 showed 690 .
• The copper price of $13,735/mt could not be confirmed in any source. Goldman's most recent public forecasts were ~$11,771/mt and a later raised forecast of $12,200/ton .
• Goldman now expects no Fed rate cuts in 2026, which was the reason for trimming the gold forecast .