Year-end reports from the Yeouido financial district are increasingly negative. Last year at this time, reports were focused on raising target prices, but this year, downgrades have overwhelmingly taken precedence. One in three domestic listed companies has recorded its lowest price of the year, reflecting a significant adjustment in the stock market and a gloomy outlook for corporate valuations.
According to financial information provider FnGuide, from October 1 to November 10, domestic securities firms issued a total of 1,408 target price downgrade reports. In contrast, only 364 reports raised target prices during the same period, indicating that downgrades outnumbered upgrades by approximately 3.9 times. Compared to the same period last year, the shift in sentiment is even more pronounced. From October 1 to November 10, 2025, there were 1,234 reports raising target prices, which was 3.2 times the 383 downgrades. Last year, there were 851 more upgrades than downgrades, but this year, downgrades exceed upgrades by 1,044.
The overall deterioration in the stock market appears to have lowered expectations among analysts. From October 2 to November 7, the KOSPI fell by 27.76%, while the KOSDAQ dropped by 27.88%. Notably, on November 6, the KOSPI plummeted by 6.02% in a single day, briefly falling below the 5,000 mark.
Recent declines in the stock market have been attributed to concerns over a slowdown in U.S. investments in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and weakness in global semiconductor stocks. The optimism surrounding corporate earnings growth in the AI sector has shifted to skepticism regarding the pace of investment expansion and profitability, impacting both stock prices and analysts' target price assessments.
Disappointing third-quarter earnings from companies have also contributed to the downward revisions in target prices. In the securities sector, decreased trading volumes and worsened bond management profits have weighed on performance. Major firms that previously drove market activity, such as Hanwha Aerospace, have also reported results that fell short of expectations. Hanwha Aerospace's third-quarter operating profit was 452 billion won, about 60.8% below the market expectation of 1.15 trillion won. DS Investment & Securities adjusted its target price from 1.65 million won to 1.25 million won. Similarly, LIG Defense & Aerospace reported a third-quarter operating profit of 67.6 billion won, falling 34.6% short of the market forecast of 103.4 billion won. SK Securities lowered its target price from 900,000 won to 700,000 won, reflecting declines in comparable company valuations.
The trend of hitting new lows continues. According to the Korea Exchange, among 2,659 KOSPI and KOSDAQ listed companies last week (November 2-6), 844 companies (31.7%) recorded their lowest prices of the year. This included 272 companies on the KOSPI and 572 on the KOSDAQ.
On November 6, when the KOSPI fell below 5,000 and triggered a circuit breaker, 720 stocks set new yearly lows in just one day. Major large-cap stocks, including Hyundai Motor, Hanwha Aerospace, Doosan Enerbility, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, and POSCO Holdings, also dropped to their lowest levels of the year.
Han Ji-young, a researcher at Kiwoom Securities, noted, "Concerns about potential regulatory tightening on data centers in the U.S. following the midterm elections are easing, and geopolitical tensions from the Middle East are also subsiding. There is a possibility that the market's sensitivity to the negative factors that have caused stock market instability since October may decrease."
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.