SK Hynix’s Jekyll-and-Hyde Week: Record Profit Forecast Meets a 41% Slide From Peak
Published on 07/27/2026 at 13:41 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The Korean memory chip giant is walking a tightrope. On one side, analysts expect SK Hynix to post an operating profit north of 64 trillion won when it reports second-quarter earnings on Wednesday — a figure that would single-handedly exceed the company’s entire 2024 operating result of roughly 47 trillion won. On the other, the stock has tumbled 41.11% from its June 25 high, closing Friday at 1,759,000 won after an 8.34% single-day rout. Monday brought a partial recovery, with shares climbing 3.24% to 1,816,000 won, but the gap between earnings momentum and market sentiment has rarely felt wider.
The Numbers That Matter
The consensus view, collated from multiple Korean brokerages, sees SK Hynix delivering revenue of around 84.17 trillion won for the April-to-June period, with operating profit landing between 64.09 trillion and 64.24 trillion won. That implies an operating margin of 75% to 77% — comfortably above the 60.3% that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. recently reported. If realized, first-half operating profit would surpass 100 trillion won, more than double the full-year 2024 figure.
The engine behind this explosion is artificial intelligence. SK Hynix commands 57% to 58% of the global high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, according to BNP Paribas, and standard DRAM prices surged 58% to 63% quarter-on-quarter in Q2. Morgan Stanley expects HBM shortages to persist, pushing memory prices up by more than 25% in the third quarter. The company ended Q1 with net liquidity of 35 trillion won.
A $950 Billion Korean-American Chip Blitz
Over the weekend, the SK Group — SK Hynix’s parent conglomerate — unveiled a sweeping strategic partnership with Nvidia valued at more than $500 billion. The centerpiece is a 2-gigawatt AI factory that SK Telecom will build using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform and SK Hynix’s HBM4 memory, with the first phase slated to go live in 2027. Separately, SK Hynix signed a long-term memory supply agreement with Microsoft, while SK Telecom inked a memorandum of understanding with Anthropic for a gigawatt-scale data center in South Korea.
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When combined with a parallel $200 billion deal between Samsung and Broadcom for memory and foundry capacity, the total value of Korean-American semiconductor pacts announced last week reaches approximately $950 billion. The flurry of announcements coincided with President Lee Jae-myung’s visit to San Francisco, where he promoted an $880 billion AI investment program.
Yet critics caution that most of these agreements remain non-binding memoranda of understanding, not firm supply contracts. The true test, some observers say, may not come until around 2028.
The ADR Puzzle and Institutional Buying
Adding another layer of complexity is SK Hynix’s Nasdaq listing, which raised $26.5 billion in late June — the largest American depositary receipt issuance by a foreign company on record. The ADRs have been trading at a roughly 28.65% premium to the Seoul-listed shares, and at times the gap has reportedly exceeded 50%. The Wall Street Journal has warned of overheating in AI euphoria, while domestic brokers argue the premium will normalize once limited conversions between ADRs and ordinary shares become possible after July 29.
On the buying side, South Korea’s National Pension Service made headlines by purchasing a net 684 billion won of Korean stocks in July — its first net Korean equity purchase this year. SK Hynix was the single largest position, with net buying of 425.8 billion won. Analyst Cha Young-joo has recommended using price weakness as a buying opportunity.
Technicals Tell a Nervous Story
The 14-day relative strength index sits at 40.1, signaling weak but not oversold conditions. The annualized 30-day volatility has surged past 118%, underscoring just how jittery trading has become around the HBM4 supply commitments and the upcoming earnings release. The Kospi index, meanwhile, trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of just 5.7 — historically cheap by any measure.
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Samsung’s delivery of its first HBM4E samples last week briefly refocused attention on competitive dynamics, even if SK Hynix still holds the leadership position. And the Bank for International Settlements has warned of overinvestment risks in the AI sector, a counterpoint to the prevailing optimism.
For investors, the equation is unusually stark: a company on track to post the most profitable quarter in its history, backed by alliances worth nearly a trillion dollars, yet trading 41% below its peak. Wednesday’s earnings release — with details on pricing, capacity utilization, and HBM4 delivery timelines — will determine which side of that divide proves more durable.
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