SK Hynix’s $950 Billion Korean-American Chip Pact Fails to Halt a 41% Slide From Peak Ahead of Earnings
Published on 07/27/2026 at 07:22 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The disconnect between SK Hynix’s blockbuster dealmaking and its flagging share price has rarely been starker. The memory-chip giant enters the most consequential week of its year with a stock that has tumbled 41.11% from its June 25 high, even as it prepares to unveil quarterly results that analysts expect will show operating profit roughly seven times higher than a year ago.
On Wednesday, July 29, SK Hynix will report second-quarter earnings — a day before rival Samsung Electronics follows suit. The consensus calls for revenue of 84.17 trillion won, up 278.6% year-on-year, with operating profit landing around 64.24 trillion won. That would translate into an operating margin of 75% to 77%, a figure that market watchers say would surpass TSMC’s recently reported 60.3% for the first time. Six brokerages have recently raised their price targets, led by KB Securities at 4.2 million won and NH Investment & Securities at 4.1 million won.
Yet the stock closed Friday at 1,759,000 won, down 8.34% on the day, and has shed 33.89% over the past month. The 14-day relative strength index sits at 40.1, signaling weak but not yet oversold conditions, while the annualized 30-day volatility has surged past 118% — a measure of just how jittery trading has become around the HBM4 supply commitments and the looming numbers.
The week’s headline-grabbing news came not from an earnings release but from a memorandum of understanding signed at the K-AI Summit in San Francisco. SK Group and Nvidia inked a deal valued at more than $500 billion covering the construction of an AI factory with up to two gigawatts of capacity and long-term supply of AI memory. SK Hynix will co-develop HBM4 with Nvidia and provide ongoing deliveries; a separate memory supply agreement was also struck with Microsoft. SK Telecom plans to operate its own AI data center starting in 2027 using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform and SK Hynix’s HBM4 chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang put the total value of SK Group partnerships at over $500 billion; when other big-tech agreements are added, the figure reaches $750 billion. Combined with a parallel $200 billion deal between Samsung and Broadcom, the entire Korean-American semiconductor package totals roughly $950 billion — backed by investments in AI data centers with five gigawatts of capacity and around two million graphics processing units.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SK Hynix?
Despite the torrent of multi-billion-dollar commitments, the share price remained under pressure Friday — a sign that investors are weighing the near-term earnings risk more heavily than the long-term supply pledges. The Korea Economic Daily noted that Samsung had already shipped initial samples of its new HBM4E memory last week, temporarily shifting attention to competitive dynamics even as SK Hynix retains a 57% share of the global HBM market, according to BNP Paribas, versus Samsung’s 22% and Micron’s 21%. The overall HBM market is expected to double from $76 billion this year to $156 billion by 2027.
Institutional buyers have been quietly stepping in. South Korea’s National Pension Service purchased a net 425.8 billion won of SK Hynix shares in July. Analyst Cha Young-joo of the Wise Economy Institute recommends a phased entry rather than a lump-sum purchase, arguing the profit cycle is still in its early stages. The Kospi index itself trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of just 5.7, a historically cheap valuation that some see as supporting further buying on weakness.
A separate note of caution has come from an unexpected quarter. James Mackintosh, the Wall Street Journal’s senior markets columnist, flagged what he called an anomaly in the pricing of SK Hynix’s American Depositary Receipt, which listed on Nasdaq in early July. Within two weeks, the premium over the Seoul-listed ordinary shares swung between 16% and 51%. Mackintosh attributed the gap to the limited ADR supply and regulatory barriers that make conversion back into Korean shares — and thus arbitrage — virtually impossible. He warned that demand for US-listed semiconductor stocks has become “out of control,” drawing a parallel to TSMC’s ADR, which once traded at an 80% premium before collapsing to near zero. Should the SK Hynix premium similarly unwind, holders of the US-listed shares could face significant losses.
SK Hynix at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
For now, the stock sits at 1,767,000 won, up 0.45% on the day but still 40.84% below its 52-week high. The chasm between record-breaking fundamentals and a battered share price may only begin to close on Wednesday, when SK Hynix delivers concrete details on pricing, capacity utilization, and HBM4 shipments — and investors finally learn whether the anticipated profit surge has materialized.
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SK Hynix Stock: New Analysis - 27 July
Fresh SK Hynix information released. What's the impact for investors? Our latest independent report examines recent figures and market trends.
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