SK Hynix's Earnings Countdown: Can a Record Rout Be Reversed by HBM4 Delivery Data?
Published on 07/20/2026 at 21:52 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The question hanging over SK Hynix is brutally simple: was the 40% collapse from a June peak a healthy correction in an overheated trade, or did the market spot cracks in the artificial-intelligence memory supercycle before the quarterly numbers arrive? The answer will come within days, when the South Korean chipmaker reports second-quarter results around July 29. By then, the stock had already suffered its worst single-session loss on record — a 15.4% plunge in Seoul trading that followed the company's Nasdaq listing of American depositary shares. Since that debut, the selling has only intensified.
The selloff wiped out more than a third of the company's market value in 30 days. SK Hynix shares now trade at 1,764,000 won, down 36.18% over the past month and 40.94% from the all-time high of 2,987,000 won reached on June 25. The relative-strength index sits at 38.9, suggesting the stock is approaching oversold territory but has not yet hit an extreme. The annualized volatility of around 126% underscores how jittery the market has become.
The trigger was the Nasdaq introduction itself, which was meant to broaden the investor base but instead set off a wave of profit-taking. The broader Kospi index lost 9% on the same day, triggering a 20-minute marketwide trading halt. Two days later, on July 16, SK Hynix tumbled another 10.95%, fully erasing the previous session's 8% recovery. A Korean brokerage then compounded the damage by cutting its second-quarter profit forecast 8% below consensus, citing slower-than-expected ramp-up of HBM4 memory chips — the high-bandwidth products that are central to the artificial-intelligence thesis.
The decisive data point will be HBM4 delivery volumes.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SK Hynix?
Analysts are zeroing in on whether the company can show accelerating shipments of its next-generation memory, which is critical for Nvidia's upcoming Rubin platform. NH Investment & Securities analyst Ryu Young-ho has already flagged disappointment: the anticipated ramp-up in HBM4 deliveries for the second quarter has not materialized as hoped. That mismatch between expectation and reality is at the heart of the current uncertainty. "Everyone is really confused about what is happening with memory demand and where the fair price is," said Daniel Yoo, global strategist at Yuanta Securities.
The bull case remains structurally intact despite the rout. SK Hynix controls 62% of HBM shipments and 57% of revenue in that segment, according to Counterpoint Research. Bank of America calls 2026 a "supercycle akin to the 1990s boom," forecasting 51% year-over-year growth in global DRAM revenue and 45% for NAND. The bank ranks SK Hynix as its top pick in memory. Supply constraints support the narrative: Micron has sold out its HBM capacity through 2027, and SK Hynix's own chief executive warns that global memory supply could trail demand by roughly 20% until 2030. UBS goes further, projecting that SK Hynix could capture about 70% of the HBM4 market for Nvidia's Rubin platform. The company already shipped 12-layer HBM4E samples to key customers in June, signaling that its technological lead remains intact.
The bear case is about positioning and price realization.
The stock's 40% decline suggests more than just digestion of the ADR supply. The downgrade that sparked the mid-July slide explicitly flagged slower HBM4 growth. Elevated expectations may have outrun the underlying fundamentals. Memory markets have a painful history of sharp reversals when oversupply appears, and some observers already see HBM prices entering a correction after 2026 as competition intensifies and production capacity expands.
Macro headwinds add to the caution. New York's governor has imposed a temporary moratorium on large data-center construction while the state develops stricter environmental rules — a move that market participants interpret as mildly negative for chip demand. Reports that cloud provider CoreWeave is hedging against falling memory prices have also raised eyebrows.
SK Hynix at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
The market's fragile structure amplifies any single stock move. Samsung and SK Hynix now account for roughly half the entire Kospi weighting, up from about a quarter at the end of last year. A sharp swing in either name drags the whole index. The same concentration is visible in the S&P 500, where semiconductors alone represent about 20% of the benchmark.
The next catalyst will be the Q2 earnings release, expected around July 29. Market commentators have cited a consensus operating profit of roughly 65 trillion won — a figure that, if missed or if accompanied by weaker HBM4 volume data, could push the stock toward its 100-day moving average near 1,617,452 won. That would represent additional downside of roughly 8% from current levels.
If, instead, the report shows accelerating HBM4 shipments and confirmed supply contracts for 2026 and 2027, the current rout could be reframed as a buying opportunity within an intact growth story. For now, the tape signals nervous repositioning. The earnings print will settle whether this was merely profit-taking after a historic rally — or the first sign that the artificial-intelligence memory cycle is losing momentum.
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