The chipmaker fell 14.6% Thursday, then rebounded today ahead of its Nasdaq debut.
SK Hynix stock just had one of its wildest weeks of the year, and it happened right before the company’s biggest moment yet on Wall Street.
Shares in the South Korean memory chipmaker plunged sharply on Thursday, then bounced back the next day, as investors argued over whether the artificial intelligence boom driving its record profits is finally cooling off. The swings come just a week before SK Hynix is set to list American Depositary Receipts on the Nasdaq on 10 July.
SK Hynix stock crashes on AI demand fears
SK Hynix stock closed down 14.6% on Thursday to 2,187,000 won, its worst single day drop in years. Samsung Electronics fell 9.1% the same day, and the two companies together dragged South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index down 7.9% to 7,648, its steepest decline since a 10% drop earlier in June.
The selloff followed reports that Meta Platforms is building a cloud business to sell off its excess AI computing power rather than keep expanding its own data centers. Investors took that as a signal that demand for the memory chips powering AI servers might not keep growing as fast as expected. SK Hynix and Samsung together make up roughly half the Kospi’s total weight, so their declines hit the wider index hard.
SK Hynix stock rebounds as fears ease
Today, the mood had shifted. Samsung Electronics rose 6.2% to 305,500 won and SK Hynix climbed 4.6% to 2.289 million won, while the Kospi recovered nearly 3% to around 7,870.
Several Korean brokerage analysts argued Thursday’s rout had gone too far. One Samsung Securities analyst said computing power remains in short supply industry wide, even for Meta itself, as AI demand keeps climbing. A colleague at the same firm described the volatility as a clash of interpretations rather than a genuinely new warning sign, adding that strong second quarter earnings could calm investor nerves. An analyst at Mirae Asset Securities went further, calling the pullback a good window to buy semiconductor stocks at a discount rather than proof that AI spending is slowing down.
Mirae Asset also pointed to the numbers behind that confidence. The firm expects global big tech capital spending to reach 806 billion dollars this year, up 73% from last year, with more than 20% growth expected again in 2027. Big tech companies also had a combined 2.1 trillion dollars in unfilled orders on their books in the first quarter, up 24% from the previous quarter, and roughly 656 billion dollars of that is expected to convert into revenue within two years.
The next real test comes on 7 July, when Samsung releases preliminary second quarter results that could confirm the rebound or send the stocks right back down.
Inside SK Hynix’s AI-fueled boom
SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron make up the so-called Big Three that dominate the global memory chip market, and SK Hynix has built a particularly strong lead in High Bandwidth Memory, the specialized memory used in AI chips from companies like Nvidia. That head start has given it something like 55% to 60% of the HBM market.
The numbers back up that dominance. In the first quarter, SK Hynix’s revenue jumped 198% year on year to 52,576bn won, while net profit soared 398% to 40,346bn won, a 77% net margin that would be remarkable for almost any company. Demand for high-performance memory has outpaced supply for months, giving SK Hynix unusual pricing power.
Now the company wants to bring that story to American investors directly. On 10 July, SK Hynix plans to list ADRs on the Nasdaq, aiming to raise as much as 29.4 billion dollars to help fund its expansion.
Is SK Hynix stock still worth buying
Not every analyst is convinced the stock is a buy right here. Edward Sheldon, a CFA charterholder who covers the stock, has pointed out that SK Hynix shares are still up roughly 800% over the past year, and he is wary of buying into a rally that steep given memory has historically been a cyclical business prone to sharp downturns.
Sheldon has said he prefers Broadcom as a way to play the AI boom, arguing its growth has been almost as strong while its valuation and price momentum look less stretched. That is one analyst’s view rather than a consensus, and it does not change the fact that SK Hynix’s fundamentals, at least for now, remain some of the strongest in the chip industry.
Anyone weighing the stock, whether through its Korean listing or the coming Nasdaq debut, will want to watch Samsung’s 7 July earnings update closely for the next real signal on where AI chip demand is actually heading.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. The author and publication are not registered investment advisors and do not provide personalized investment recommendations.