Memory chip prices are soaring. So why are Micron (MU), SanDisk (SNDK) and SK Hynix (SKHY) falling?
Korea's chip exports nearly tripled in the first 20 days of August and its semiconductor export price index has quadrupled since 2023. Micron, SanDisk, SK Hynix, Samsung and Kioxia all peaked within one week in June and have fallen 21% to 51% since.
Kospi rebounds 5.89% after worst day in weeks as SK Hynix announces $28.6 billion buyback
The Kospi fell 5.80% on Wednesday, its worst day in weeks, then rose 5.89% the next day. SK Hynix's $28.6 billion buyback and easing global interest rates drove one of its sharpest two-day reversals this year.
CoreWeave (CRWV) signed a multibillion-dollar AI cloud deal with Hudson River Trading, but neither company disclosed the terms.
CoreWeave signed a multi-year deal with Hudson River Trading to power the quant trading firm's AI research on Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 and HGX B200 systems. Neither company disclosed a dollar figure. It's CoreWeave's latest large infrastructure deal after a $21 billion Meta contract and a $104 billion revenue backlog.
Samsung shareholders want a $32.5 billion buyback, and they're moving to force a vote on it. SK Hynix just committed $28.6 billion to the same idea.
A shareholder group called ACT wants Samsung to buy back and cancel 45.5 trillion won ($32.5 billion), three days before SK Hynix approved its own 40 trillion won buyback, and is pushing to force a shareholder vote on it.
SK Hynix will buy back 40 trillion won of stock and cancel all of it. The board voted hours after the shares fell 9.75%.
SK Hynix approved a 40 trillion won ($28.6 billion) buyback and said it will cancel every share, the largest buyback and cancellation by a Korean listed company, hours after its stock fell 9.75 percent in Seoul.
Michael Burry says Etched is 'serious competition' for Nvidia. The catch is what its chip can't run.
Michael Burry, who has bet against Nvidia (NVDA) all year, called AI chip startup Etched 'serious competition' on Tuesday. Etched's Sohu chip is 10 to 20 times faster at one job, but it can't run several of the model types teams deploy most, and it's raising at up to $21 billion before shipping at scale.
SK Hynix’s (SKHY) HBM4 may cost Nvidia (NVDA) nearly twice as much as HBM3E. Samsung wants the same deal.
Two research firms estimate SK Hynix's HBM4 costs Nvidia about twice as much per gigabyte as HBM3E. SK Hynix has not confirmed the number, and Samsung Electronics is chasing the same price for its own HBM4.
Foreigners drove the Kospi to a record high on Samsung and SK Hynix. Local institutions sold the whole gain the same day.
The Kospi set a record high on Aug 18 as foreign buyers pushed Samsung and SK Hynix higher, then Korean institutions sold 1.19 trillion won into the rally and the index closed down 1.55 percent.
The AI trade rotates to a new sector every week. Which one is it going to be this week?
The AI trade has rotated by sector almost every week: software, then photonics, then memory. So which corner of AI runs next? I make the case for the one group that keeps riding along without ever leading.
Samsung could return $141 billion a year to shareholders as SK Hynix weighs $70 billion payout
The Kospi climbed back near 7,000 last week, led by Samsung and SK Hynix. Now the market's waiting on how much cash each will return to shareholders, with estimates as high as $141 billion for Samsung and $70 billion for SK Hynix.
The Kospi rebounded 11%. Korea's leveraged investors did not.
The Kospi rose about 11% in a week, but the rebound came too late for the investors who bet on Samsung and SK Hynix leverage with borrowed money, and it does little for the ones still holding those funds.
Memory is the bottleneck for AI, and the shortage is real
Elon Musk amplified a post calling memory, not compute, the limit for AI, and memory stocks ran. The shortage is real: demand is growing far faster than supply, and the new SK Hynix and Micron plants do not open until 2027 and 2028.
Applied Materials (AMAT) posted a record quarter and guided higher. Shares fell in extended trading
Applied Materials posted its highest quarterly revenue ever, beat Wall Street on both lines and guided the fall quarter higher. The stock still fell. DRAM is now 26% of equipment sales.
SK Square rose 9% on Wednesday, more than SK Hynix itself. The difference is a payout SK Hynix hasn't announced yet.
On August 13, SK Hynix rose almost 6% with an overnight US chip rally. SK Square, the holding company that owns about 20% of SK Hynix, rose 9%, more than the chipmaker itself. The difference is a payout SK Hynix hasn't announced yet.
South Korea makes first-time leveraged fund buyers practice before risking real money. Trading in those funds already fell to one-thirteenth of its level.
From August 19, Koreans buying a single-stock leverage or inverse ETF for the first time will have to complete five days of mock trading, about five hours in all, before they can put in real money. It comes on top of a 30 million won ($21,200 USD) cash deposit that already cut trading in these funds to about one-thirteenth of its level.
SK Hynix just became the biggest shareholder of Japan's Kioxia. A deal it signed in 2018 blocks it from taking control until 2028.
SK Hynix indirectly became Kioxia's largest shareholder through a 2018 convertible-bond deal, but a voting cap and antitrust hurdles keep it from taking control. The same week, its Solidigm unit moved to restart a stalled NAND plant in China.
Samsung catches SK Hynix on HBM4 as 2027 forecasts flip the race
Samsung has lifted its HBM4 yield to about 80% in six months, level with SK Hynix. For the first time, UBS and KB Securities expect Samsung to pass SK Hynix in high-bandwidth memory in 2027, turning a technology race into a contest over who can supply Nvidia at scale.
Samsung carried the Kospi on Tuesday on growth beyond memory. It rose 4.13% while SK Hynix stayed flat.
Samsung Electronics rose 4.13% on Tuesday and carried the Kospi higher while SK Hynix barely moved. Strong August chip exports lifted both, but Samsung has a foundry business and a new robot unit that give investors a reason to own it beyond memory.
SK Hynix's Solidigm would be the fourth listed company in one SK chain. Korea's new rule has a 10% hole.
If SK Hynix's Solidigm lists on the Nasdaq, four listed SK companies would sit in a single line of control. Korea's new duplicate listing rule exempts subsidiaries that are under 10% of the parent, and Solidigm is under it on all three tests.
Korea's young and old borrowed to chase stocks. Then the market fell 43.9%, and they started missing payments.
Data the Financial Supervisory Service prepared for a lawmaker on August 9 shows 63% of the money borrowed against Korea's five most valuable stocks belongs to investors 60 and over. The two age groups now falling behind on their bank loans are the youngest borrowers and the oldest.
Kospi just fell for a seventh straight week. SK Hynix (SKHY) says its bigger shareholder payout plan is coming by September 30.
Kospi closed out a seventh straight losing week on August 7, its longest slide since 2022. Two days after SK Hynix said a bigger shareholder payout was coming by year end, it moved that promise up to the third quarter.
Max your 401k match, Roth IRA and HSA before you touch a single stock. Index funds come next, individual stocks come last.
The order I'd actually go in: 401k match, then Roth IRA and HSA, then a broad index fund (or X Money if you want zero market risk), then mega-caps and dividend ETFs, then single stocks last.
SK Hynix approved $38 billion for two new chip plants, one for AI memory and one for NAND flash. The first cleanroom doesn't open until December 2028.
SK Hynix's board approved 54.3 trillion won ($38.3B USD) on August 7 for two new chip plants, one in Yongin for DRAM and one in Cheongju for NAND. Neither makes a chip before 2028, and the company also moved up its 2045 completion target for the whole Yongin cluster to 2033.
SK Hynix's US chip unit is reportedly heading toward Nasdaq. Korea's new spinoff rule might not actually apply.
SK Hynix's US NAND unit Solidigm is raising money toward a possible Nasdaq listing worth up to 50 trillion won ($35.3B USD), four days after Korea's new rule on subsidiary listings took effect. Solidigm wasn't created the way the rule defines a spinoff, so the toughest part of it might not apply.