SK Hynix (SKHY) ADRs dropped 6.8% to $180.65 in premarket trading Wednesday, as investors locked in profits following a stunning 27% single-session gain on Tuesday.
The Tuesday surge was sparked by IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who said customers had shifted spending toward storage and memory products — a direct tailwind for SK Hynix.
After that run-up, the ADRs were trading at 6.2 times forward earnings, putting them roughly on par with Micron — a key reason some investors had previously bought the stock.
Part of the appeal of SKHY ADRs was that they looked cheaper than Micron on a valuation basis. Once that gap closed, the case for holding became less obvious.
The decline in the ADRs came even as SK Hynix’s Seoul-listed stock closed 8.8% higher in South Korea on Wednesday. The two haven’t moved in sync since the company’s U.S. debut on Friday.
Korean stocks have been swinging sharply, with local investors using leveraged ETFs to amplify moves in both directions.
SK Hynix made its U.S. debut as the largest-ever first-time American listing by a foreign company. Investor demand at IPO exceeded supply by more than seven times.
The company controls roughly 56% of the global high-bandwidth memory market — the specialized chips that sit beside processors in Nvidia’s AI accelerators and allow data to flow at speed.
Without HBM, even the most powerful AI chips sit idle. That makes SK Hynix a genuine chokepoint in the AI hardware supply chain.
The company has been first to develop and qualify each new generation of HBM. For HBM4, tied to Nvidia’s latest Vera Rubin platform, supply chain estimates suggest SK Hynix will supply the majority of chips. In June, the two companies announced a technology partnership to align roadmaps going forward.
That lead doesn’t mean the competition is standing still. Samsung has pushed into HBM4 mass production, and Micron has been gaining market share. Both have been certified to supply Nvidia’s newest platform.
One overhang for U.S. investors is the pricing gap between Korean shares and ADRs. That premium topped 50% on Tuesday.
The Korea Securities Depositary is expected to allow mutual conversion between local shares and ADRs on July 29, which could close that gap.
Memory is also a cyclical industry. SKHY’s Seoul-listed stock soared over the past year, but memory stocks briefly entered a bear market just before the U.S. listing — a reminder of how quickly conditions can shift.
SK Hynix’s HBM demand is expected to remain tight into 2027. Samsung and Micron are both certified for Nvidia’s HBM4 platform and actively ramping production.
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