SK Hynix's historic U.S. trading debut helped investors regain their appetite for the AI trade.
American depositary receipts of SK Hynix soared 13% Friday as the South Korean chip maker pulled off a $26.5 billion U.S. share sale, the largest by a foreign company in history. The company ended its first day of trading with a market value of $1.2 trillion, putting it ahead of U.S. chip makers Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices.
SK Hynix's offering capped a volatile week for the market. Stocks have swung wildly lately with investors assessing, and then reassessing, whether the rally in technology companies underpinning the AI revolution was justified. What's more, renewed fighting in the Middle East revived fears of inflation.
On Friday, traders looked past those concerns and toward a future where AI giants still can't get enough SK Hynix memory chips. The company's offering drew many of the biggest names in tech investing, with firms such as Baillie Gifford, Coatue Management and Situational Awareness Partners indicating interest in buying up to $7 billion of the shares in aggregate, the company said in a filing ahead of the offering Friday.
"There are still many questions about the longevity and the cyclicality of the memory sectors," said Hendi Susanto, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds who scooped up SK Hynix shares and is looking to buy more. "Overall, I'm bullish on the road map for 2026 and 2027, and we are seeing growing confidence among major players about 2028."
SK Hynix and rival Samsung Electronics account for about 55% of South Korea's Kospi composite index, which remains the world's top-performing stock market this year despite a painful recent correction. But most U.S. investors have missed out on those stunning gains this year, thanks in large part to the dearth of American depositary receipts on large Korean tech stocks.
Many instead turned to the Roundhill Memory exchange-traded fund, a concentrated bet on U.S. and Korean memory-chip stocks including SK Hynix and Samsung. Launched in April, the fund became the fastest ETF in history to reach $20 billion in assets.
Some investors view the success of SK Hynix's market debut as a signal that demand for the AI infrastructure boom is far from over. They believe that AI demand remains robust enough to broaden out beyond the initial chip leaders and lift multiple sectors, boosting the entire stock market.
"SK Hynix has had a great run in its Korean listing, and there's certainly lots of enthusiasm for its U.S. listing," said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bank Asset Management. "It's an AI story that we think continues, but we think the beneficiaries will spread out and the winners will come in industrials, utilities and other sectors."
On Friday, The PHLX semiconductor index, stuffed with highfliers such as Nvidia, Intel and Micron, was up less than 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite added 0.3%, while the S&P 500 index gained 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%, or 150 points.
For the week, the S&P 500 was 1.2% higher, while the Nasdaq advanced 1.7%. The Dow fell 0.5%, snapping a four-week winning streak.
Min Dong-geon, a 33-year-old office worker in Seoul, is part of a wave of South Korean individual investors who have been buying up SK Hynix and Samsung this year. He remains confident the AI-driven memory supercycle is going strong even after those stocks slumped earlier this week.
SK Hynix fell by 6% on Tuesday and another 6% the next day, tracking a broader selloff in global technology stocks driven by concerns about the AI boom's longevity. The stock gained 5% Thursday and was little changed Friday ahead of the U.S. debut.
Though the volatility has rattled many everyday investors in South Korea, Min remains unfazed.
"Looking at the long-term picture, I don't get caught up in daily market fluctuations or corrections," Min said. "The cycle isn't over."
Min is also less enthusiastic about SK Hynix's ADRs. A U.S. debut could help narrow the firm's valuation discount, he said. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, whose shares have long been listed in the U.S., trades at a higher price relative to its earnings compared with SK Hynix. On the flip side, existing investors such as Min will see their shares diluted as new shares are issued.
"I'm wholly confident in SK Hynix's stock itself. As for the ADR, it's hard to say whether it's clearly good or bad for existing shareholders," Min said.
SK Hynix said the newly raised capital from its offering would be used to help fund investments in a new memory chip-making cluster and an advanced chip-packaging site in South Korea. Some of the money is earmarked for buying next-generation chip-making equipment.
"We're going to double our capacity within five years, and all my customers say, 'That's not enough, man. We need more,'" said Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, parent company of SK Hynix, in a CNBC interview on Friday.
Write to Vicky Ge Huang at vicky.huang@wsj.com and Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 10, 2026 17:02 ET (21:02 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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