Friday should have been a banner day for SK Hynix. Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, speaking in Seoul, handed the South Korean chipmaker an official certification for its HBM4 memory — the component that will power Nvidia’s coming “Vera Rubin” AI platform. First shipments are slated for this autumn, and industry estimates peg SK Hynix’s share of the order book at roughly 60% to 70%, far ahead of rivals Samsung and Micron, which also received approvals.
Instead, investors fled. The stock cratered nearly 10% to 2,070,000 won, logging a weekly loss of 11.27%. The trigger came from across the Pacific: Broadcom’s revenue guidance for AI chips missed expectations by about 7%, igniting a brutal sector rotation. Strong U.S. jobs data compounded the anxiety, feeding fears that interest rates would stay elevated. Foreign investors have now pulled out of South Korean tech names for 20 consecutive sessions, and the KOSPI index was dragged down so sharply that Asian futures trading was temporarily halted.
The contradiction between operational milestones and market panic could hardly be starker. Just three days earlier, SK Hynix shares had touched an all-time high. The ensuing correction erased billions in market value, yet the year-to-date gain remains a stunning 205.76%. The stock also trades 42% above its 50-day moving average — a sign that the rally had become stretched.
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Management is betting big on the future, undeterred by short-term volatility. The company confirmed plans to issue American Depositary Receipts in the second half of the year, a move that could raise up to $14 billion. That capital will help fund an ambitious build-out: new fabrication plants in South Korea and Indiana, with a target to double monthly wafer output by 2030. Total capital expenditure is expected to reach $67 billion by 2028, as SK Hynix races to close a projected global memory supply gap later this decade.
Yet not all news from the Nvidia camp was positive. Market chatter suggests Nvidia may sharply reduce memory capacity per server rack on the Vera Rubin platform, raising fears of lower aggregate demand for HBM4. Analysts, meanwhile, view the sell-off largely as profit-taking after a blistering rally. Meritz Securities’ Hwang Soo-wook expects a pause in upward momentum until fresh catalysts emerge — the next big test being SK Hynix’s official second-quarter earnings report in July.
The fundamental case for SK Hynix remains intact: bespoke AI memory for hyperscalers should lift margins through at least 2027. But risks are multiplying. Chinese competitor CXMT is encroaching on market share, and the specter of U.S. tariffs on AI hardware looms over the cyclical memory sector. For now, the stock is caught between a transformational product cycle and macro-driven fear — a tension that could define its trajectory in the months ahead.
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