SK Hynix’s HBM4 Delivery Countdown: Can Earnings Reverse a 40% Slide?
Published on 07/20/2026 at 16:44 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The retail investors who piled nearly 14 trillion won into leveraged single-stock ETFs on Korean chipmakers over the past two months are nursing heavy losses. The Kodex SK Hynix 2x ETF has shed roughly 70% from its June peak and almost half its value since launch, prompting regulators to jack up the minimum account balance for trading such products from 3 million won to 30 million won. The average entry price of SK Hynix’s 295,591 individual shareholders now stands at 1,811,094 won — a whisker above the current trading level of 1,764,000 won, which marks the stock’s lowest close since May 20 and a 4.23% single-day decline on July 20.
That latest leg lower is just one act in a drama that began with SK Hynix’s Nasdaq debut last week. What was meant to be a crowning moment quickly soured as American depositary shares triggered a wave of profit-taking. On the day of the listing, Seoul-listed SK Hynix suffered its worst single-day drop on record — 15.4% — and the broader Kospi tumbled 9%, forcing a 20-minute market-wide trading halt. Three days later, on July 16, another 11.53% plunge hit the stock, again on a day when Asian chip stocks sold off broadly and the Kospi triggered its 37th sidecar trading pause of the year. By July 20 the index had shed 4.46% to 6,516.27 points, activating a fresh five-minute sidecar.
Two catalysts have kept the pressure on. The open-source Kimi K3 AI model, unveiled last week by Chinese firm Moonshot AI, revived doubts about the need for the billions western hyperscalers are pouring into AI infrastructure. Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran pushed Brent crude above $91 a barrel, adding to market anxiety. The SK Hynix ADR, trading at $154.03, still commands a 29.4% premium over the Seoul close — evidence that US investors remain more bullish than their Korean counterparts, but the gap has narrowed.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SK Hynix?
At the KCCI Summer Forum on Jeju Island, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won painted a picture of “complete chaos” in the memory chip market. He said customers are demanding between 60% and 100% more AI memory for 2027, while overall memory demand is set to rise 50% to 60% — a pace no company can match in a single year. Chey warned of “chipflation,” where PC and smartphone makers pass high memory costs to consumers, and called on memory producers to accept leaner margins to deter Chinese rival CXMT. SK Hynix is responding by accelerating the build-out of its Yongin cluster to February 2027, converting its Cheongju M15X line to HBM production (a 21.6 trillion won investment pledged in March), and weighing additional sites including a $3.87 billion plant already under construction in Indiana.
Despite the rout, several analysts see value. JPMorgan views the 20–25% correction in semiconductor stocks as a rotation rather than a fundamental break, pointing to tight DRAM and NAND markets that could persist through 2028. Morgan Stanley raised its DRAM price forecast for the third quarter to 21% quarter-over-quarter, driven by LPDDR5-class server memory. Barclays initiated coverage of the Nasdaq-listed ADRs with an “Overweight” rating and roughly 70% upside potential after the shares briefly dipped below the $149 issue price. NH Investment & Securities believes the Kospi has found a floor at 6,000 and expects a recovery toward 7,000–7,500 once US tech giants report earnings.
The bear case, however, centres on expectations that outpaced reality. A report from a South Korean brokerage warned that SK Hynix’s second-quarter operating profit may miss projections, which market commentators have pegged at around 65 trillion won — a figure that likely refers to revenue or an operating-profit estimate that seemed too high to hold. NH analyst Ryu Young-ho has flagged that the anticipated ramp-up in HBM4 shipments did not materialise as hoped in the second quarter. With SK Hynix now accounting for roughly half of the entire Kospi weighting alongside Samsung, any disappointment in the earnings release, expected around July 29, could drag the entire index lower. A miss on HBM4 volumes would leave the stock vulnerable to a fall toward its 100-day moving average of 1,617,000 won.
The earnings report — due a day after Microsoft and Meta report and a day before Amazon — is the clear inflection point. Historically, a positive surprise from Alphabet has lifted Samsung and SK Hynix by 11% and 17%, respectively, within a month. But the data that matters most is the HBM4 delivery numbers. If they confirm that SK Hynix is on track to command roughly 70% of the HBM4 market for Nvidia’s upcoming Rubin platform, as UBS projects, the current slide may be remembered as a buying opportunity within a still-intact supercycle. If they show that supply has failed to keep pace with the hype, the stock could face a deeper reassessment. The answer arrives next week.
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