Investors are still enthusiastic about the memory boom, and are looking for new ways to cash in
South Korea's SK Hynix listed its ADRs on the Nasdaq earlier this month.
SK Hynix's debut on the Nasdaq has so far been met with enthusiasm from U.S. investors - and lots of volatility. Now, a host of funds are looking to give traders even more exposure to one of the memory boom's largest beneficiaries.
ETF provider Direxion launched its Direxion Daily SK Hynix Bull 2X ETF SKHL on Wednesday, which it said will aim to deliver 200% of the daily performance of SK Hynix's American depositary receipts $(SKHY)$. The leveraged ETF will trade under the ticker symbol "SKHL", and joins other recently launched leveraged products like the Corgi SK Hynix 2x Daily ETF SK, the T-REX 2X Long SKHY Daily Target ETF HYNX and offerings from GraniteShares and Leverage Shares.
The strong reaction to SK Hynix's ADRs "demonstrates that there is significant interest in gaining exposure to one of the companies most closely tied to" the surging demand for memory being driven by artificial intelligence, Jake Behan, head of capital markets at Direxion, told MarketWatch.
SK Hynix is one of the world's top producers of high-bandwidth memory, along with Samsung Electronics (KR:005930) and Micron Technology $(MU)$. All three companies currently wield immense pricing power amid supply shortages of dynamic random-access memory that are expected to last through the end of next year, if not longer.
Before SK Hynix's ADR listing earlier this month, U.S. investors had limited access to the South Korean memory-chip maker's massive growth opportunity. Despite the stock's volatility, Korea-listed shares of SK Hynix have jumped almost 220% so far this year.
U.S. memory stocks like Micron and Sandisk $(SNDK)$ have also experienced some volatility "as traders continuously reassess AI demand, spending trends and the durability of the trade," Behan said in emailed comments - adding that products playing on those trends "have naturally attracted attention from active traders seeking tactical exposure."
Micron's stock has climbed 190% so far this year, while Sandisk's has soared almost 460%.
SK Hynix's ADRs were down more than 12% on Wednesday afternoon alongside shares of Sandisk and Micron, which were down 15% and 10%, respectively, after seeing gains on Tuesday.
Lois Gregson, a senior ETF analyst at FactSet, told MarketWatch that the growing interest in semiconductor-related stocks has coincided with an "increased willingness to trade single-stock ETFs."
Gregson noted that fund flows into single-stock and basket ETFs in the semiconductor space have reached $37 billion so far this year, while fund flows into single-stock ETFs more broadly have reached almost $13.5 billion in the same period.
Going forward, questions will revolve around how much investors "really know about" SK Hynix's shares, and how much that matters "if trades are placed based on a volatility trade," Gregson said in emailed comments.
Will Rhind, CEO of GraniteShares, said the firm launched its GraniteShares 2x Long SK Hynix Daily ETF SKUU and GraniteShares 2x Short SK Hynix Daily ETF SKDD on Tuesday following SK Hynix's record ADR listing "because U.S. investors wanted a more direct way to express a view on that trend," just as they do for Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla $(TSLA)$, without having to rely on broader chip funds. GraniteShares provides a GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF NVDL and a GraniteShares 2x Long TSLA Daily ETF TSLR.
"The interest we're seeing goes beyond a single company," Rhind told MarketWatch in emailed comments.
In his view, it shows that investors are interested in evaluating memory-chip makers on their own given the role they play in the AI buildout, rather than as part of the broader chip sector.
Todd Sohn, chief ETF strategist at Baird Strategas, said it's important for investors to keep in mind that products like leveraged ETFs "are meant to be held on a daily basis, not long term."
The extreme volatility of these leveraged ETFs could be exacerbated given semiconductors are a "high-beta market," he told MarketWatch in emailed comments. Therefore, investors should keep their appetite for risk in mind.
Still, there's been "a massive jump over recent years" in interest for semiconductor ETFs, Sohn said - noting that they are currently trading at $40 billion per day, whereas they had been trading at just $4 billion per day when OpenAI's ChatGPT was released in November 2022. The flow into other tech-related ETFs also shows "overgrown investor enthusiasm for this area," he added.
-Britney Nguyen
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 15, 2026 14:02 ET (18:02 GMT)
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