Analysts Lift SK Hynix Targets Even as Stock Crashes 25% and $64 Billion Investment Divides Opinion

SK Hynix stock drops 25% from all-time high amid macro jitters, but Korean brokerages raise targets and a $29.4B Nasdaq ADR listing looms.

A week that began with SK Hynix trading near an all-time high ended with the memory-chip maker nursing a 25.28% plunge from its June 25 peak. The stock closed Thursday at 2,232,000 won, down 12.81% on the day, after touching an intraday loss of 14.6% that helped trigger an automatic trading halt on the Kospi. Yet in an unusual display of conviction, several Korean brokerages used the sell-off to raise their price targets, arguing the carnage has more to do with macro jitters than with the company’s fundamentals.

The selling wave started overnight on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq Composite slid and shares of Micron Technology and Sandisk each fell more than 10%. When Asian markets opened, Seoul’s tech sector took the hit. Samsung Electronics closed 9.06% lower at 286,000 won, and SK Hynix’s largest shareholder, SK Square, shed more than 10%. For SK Hynix, the drop erased nearly all gains made since late June, though the stock still shows a 229.69% advance year-to-date and a more than 350% climb from its 52-week low in October.

A Nasdaq debut on the horizon

Against this backdrop, SK Hynix is pushing ahead with what would be the largest American depositary receipt listing in market history. The company filed an updated registration form with the SEC for a dual listing on the Nasdaq, with trading tentatively set for July 10. The planned offering volume of roughly $29.4 billion would dwarf Alibaba’s New York debut in 2014, which raised $21.8 billion.

The timing is awkward. The 30-day annualized volatility in SK Hynix shares currently stands at 112.47%, reflecting deep investor nervousness. A successful placement would broaden the investor base and provide fresh capital for capacity expansion — something optimists see as a potential catalyst. Skeptics worry that flooding the market with new equity during such a volatile period could add downward pressure.

Brokers double down on bullish forecasts

While the market panicked, IBK Investment & Securities lifted its target price from 1.8 million won to 4 million won, maintaining a buy recommendation. Analyst Kim Woon-ho expects second-quarter 2026 revenue to surge 50.2% quarter-on-quarter to 78.968 trillion won and operating profit to rise 62.3% to 61 trillion won. That would mark the 11th straight quarter in which SK Hynix beats consensus.

NH Investment & Securities went further. Analyst Ryu Young-ho raised his full-year earnings estimates for 2026 and 2027 to 289.4 trillion won and 470 trillion won, respectively. For the second quarter he sees revenue of 85.3 trillion won and operating profit of 66.2 trillion won — a 618.7% jump from a year earlier. He also highlighted that SK Hynix trades at just six times forward twelve-month earnings, compared with 7.9 for Micron and 12.6 for Sandisk.

The $64 billion question

The sell-off coincided with a massive investment announcement. SK Hynix plans to spend roughly $64.4 billion on new chip factories, including a NAND flash facility. CEO Kwak Noh-jung said construction of the M17 fab will begin next year with operations targeted for the first half of 2029. Of the total, 80 trillion won goes to the NAND plant and another 20 trillion won to a packaging facility called P&T7. The company argues that demand from HBM servers, DRAM, enterprise SSDs and NAND storage is being pulled higher by the artificial-intelligence boom. SK Hynix and Samsung have jointly outlined a broader investment program worth $2.1 trillion.

Not everyone is convinced. Investor Michael Burry, who famously bet against the U.S. housing market in 2008, expressed skepticism about the Korean mega-spending plans. In comments to his subscribers, he called the approach “the beginning of the end,” questioning whether the massive AI investments will generate adequate returns.

Bull case vs. bear case

SK Hynix led the global high-bandwidth memory market with a 56.4% revenue share in the first quarter of 2026, and its DRAM business ranked second with 29.1% market share. The company’s HBM4 chips are being supplied to Nvidia under long-term contracts. Management has repeatedly stated that customer demand already exceeds planned production for years to come, and Samsung’s memory chief warned in April of “significant shortages” lasting at least into 2027 — a view SK Hynix echoed a week earlier.

The bear case centers on valuation fatigue and early warning signs. Reports that Nvidia might trim its production plans began circulating before the sell-off, and SK Hynix itself is said to have slowed its HBM4 capacity ramp-up — a potential red flag for AI memory demand. The stock has more than decupled from its cycle trough and crossed the $1 trillion market-cap threshold, meaning a large portion of its valuation rests on the assumption of a multiyear structural shortage. The near-25% decline from the high shows how quickly that thesis can be repriced.

Technical signals and the next catalyst

Despite the rout, SK Hynix still trades 10.39% above its 50-day moving average of 2,021,940 won. If the HBM order book holds, the argument for a recovery toward that average and beyond remains intact. Should the sell-off reflect a genuine reassessment of AI investment momentum, a further decline toward the 100-day average of 1,484,340 won cannot be ruled out.

The next concrete test is the Nasdaq debut on July 10. How the stock behaves in that first session — and whether the $29.4 billion offering is smoothly absorbed — will offer an early signal of whether investors are ready to re-enter the AI memory trade or whether the current volatility marks a more lasting shift in sentiment. Second-quarter results, expected in the coming weeks, will provide the next reality check on the analyst forecasts that currently stand in such sharp contrast to the market’s mood.