SK Hynix’s $26.5B Nasdaq Coup: Chey Ties Further US Sales to Stability as Seoul Stock Stumbles
Published on 07/11/2026 at 13:15 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
A euphoric Wall Street debut and a punishing week in Seoul — that was the split-screen reality for SK Hynix last week. In America, the memory-chip giant pulled off the largest initial public offering by a foreign company in US history, raising $26.5 billion. At home, ordinary shares shed more than 10 percent in seven days, a stark reminder that a record listing cannot insulate the stock from the sector’s underlying nerves.
Few statements captured the tension better than SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won’s post-IPO comments to Bloomberg Television. Further US equity offerings are possible, he said, but only if conditions are right. “Once we have better returns, there will be more demand.” His immediate priority? Stabilising the share price. The remark effectively frames the current ADR sale not as a one-off, but as a potential template — whose repetition depends squarely on market calm in the weeks ahead.
A $26.5 Billion Splash
The numbers from the Nasdaq offering are staggering. SK Hynix sold 177.9 million American Depositary Receipts at $149 apiece, with each ADR representing one-tenth of a Seoul-listed ordinary share. The deal was seven times oversubscribed and, according to multiple reports, trailed only SpaceX as the second-largest flotation ever on a US exchange. Trading opened at $170, a 14 percent premium to the offer price, and closed the first day at $168.01, still comfortably above the listing price. The capital settlement is scheduled for July 14, with the additional listing of ordinary shares on the Kospi following on July 29.
In the wake of the debut, the company’s market capitalisation — roughly $1.2 trillion according to CNBC, or around €898.8 billion based on domestic calculations — has overtaken US rival Micron, which stands at about $1.1 trillion. Yet the valuation gap with peers remains glaring. SK Hynix trades at just 4.8 times forward earnings, while the sector median sits near 29.8 and Micron at 6.6. Analysts cited by CNBC expect the so-called Korea discount to narrow gradually, but not vanish.
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Mining the Boom
Nearly all of the $26.5 billion will flow into chip-manufacturing expansion — a notable break from the industry’s long-held caution after past overcapacity cycles. CEO Kwak Noh-jung said HBM memory lies at the heart of the AI revolution, and Chairman Chey has pledged to invest “tens of billions” more over the coming years, arguing that even doubling production capacity will not meet surging demand.
The cash is earmarked for advanced packaging technology, new memory formats such as AiM, HBF and custom HBM, and possibly a US fabrication facility. The company has already committed $3.87 billion to a packaging plant in Indiana and is weighing a further $10 billion stake in a US-based AI solutions firm. At the end of the first quarter, SK Hynix held a net cash position of 54 trillion won.
Operationally, the numbers are eye-popping. First-quarter 2026 revenue hit 52.6 trillion won, up 198 percent year-on-year, with operating profit of 37.6 trillion won and a margin of 72 percent. For the full year 2025, revenue was a record 97.1 trillion won and operating profit 47.2 trillion won. Reuters estimates Q2 operating profit at 65.5 trillion won, while several analysts forecast 2026 revenue tripling to roughly $235 billion.
Market Share Pressure Beneath the Surface
SK Hynix commanded a 56.4 percent share of the HBM market in Q1, cementing its role as the dominant supplier of the high-bandwidth memory chips powering Nvidia’s AI accelerators. But the lead is shrinking. CNBC reports that analysts expect the company’s share to dip to around 50 percent this year and drop further to the low 40-percent range over the medium term, as Samsung and Chinese rivals catch up.
This creeping competition helps explain the contrasting moods in the two markets. The Seoul-listed stock closed at 2,180,000 won on Friday, down 0.27 percent on the day and off 10.1 percent for the week. Over the past month, it managed a 6.45 percent gain, but the year-to-date advance of 222 percent — more than 343 percent from the 52-week low of 491,500 won hit in October 2025 — has cooled sharply. The stock now sits about 27 percent below its record high of 2,987,000 won set on June 25.
SK Hynix at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
Technical indicators paint a neutral picture: the 14-day relative strength index is 46.1, with the price still just 1.76 percent above its 50-day moving average of 2,142,220 won. Yet the annualised 30-day volatility of over 114 percent betrays the market’s jittery reaction to every headline. The heady inflows into two new leveraged Nasdaq products tied to the ADR — a sign of heavy speculative demand — add another layer of risk.
For investors, two narratives are now intertwined. One speaks of an unbroken memory boom powered by AI, a story that has propelled SK Hynix’s profits and share price to extraordinary heights in 2026. The other warns of potential dilution from future US equity sales, a scenario Chairman Chey has explicitly linked to the stock’s stability in the weeks ahead. The coming sessions will reveal which story markets choose to believe.
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