Choppy Waters for SK Hynix as Chairman Chey Counsels Patience Post-Nasdaq Listing

SK Group chairman advises investors to hold shares amid wild swings after SK Hynix's Nasdaq debut, citing long-term HBM demand despite daily double-digit drops in Seoul.

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won stepped into the fray at the end of a tumultuous first week for his company’s American Depositary Shares, asking investors to keep their cool. “The stock will probably rise over the long term,” he said, pointing to sustained demand for memory chips, before adding that he could not predict where the price would be next month. His advice: hold the shares rather than trade them frequently.

The appeal came after SK Hynix’s Nasdaq debut on July 10 turned into one of the most volatile debuts of the year. The South Korean chipmaker raised $26.5 billion by placing 177.9 million ADS at $149 each, each ADS representing one-tenth of a Korean common share. The stock opened at $170 and closed its first session at $168.01, delivering an immediate if modest gain.

Then the real action began. On July 13, the ADS slid to $152.35, only to bounce back the following day with an intraday high of $173.14 before closing at $169.18. By July 15 the securities had climbed to $176.46, and they ended the week on July 17 with a 5.02% gain. Beneath that tidy weekly close, however, lay daily swings that tested the nerves of even seasoned traders.

The turbulence was even more pronounced in Seoul. The underlying Korean common stock suffered its steepest one-day loss in corporate history on July 13, plummeting 15.37%. By July 16 it had fallen 11.53% further to 1.842 million won, bringing the weekly decline in the home market to about 17.32%. On Wednesday, a recovery in US chip stocks had briefly lifted the Korean shares more than 8%, but that rally evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. Thursday brought a fresh 11.5% drop, erasing the prior day’s gains, and Friday added another 11.53% decline.

At the heart of the excitement is SK Hynix’s domination of the high-bandwidth memory market. HBM chips are essential components for AI systems, and the company commanded an estimated 56.4% share of that segment in the first quarter of 2026. First-quarter revenue came in at 52.58 trillion won, with operating profit of 37.61 trillion won, driven largely by HBM sales. The problem is that an overcrowded AI-memory trade and newly launched leveraged single-stock ETFs are amplifying moves in both directions, whipsawing investors who had piled into the story.

Wall Street analyst teams remain firmly behind the stock despite the gyrations. Barclays initiated coverage of the ADS with an Overweight rating and a $330 price target, implying more than 100% upside from current levels. Analyst Simon Coles expects memory-chip shortages to persist through 2027, with supply only meaningfully improving in 2028. Separately, the research firm Wall Street Zen upgraded the ADS to "Strong-Buy" this week.

The sell-off was not confined to SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics lost more than 8%, Seoul Semiconductor dropped 5.13%, LG Innotek fell 2.91% and Samsung SDI shed over 4%. Across the Pacific, Micron Technology tumbled 8% and Intel gave up more than 4%. The trigger was a broader rout in US semiconductor names overnight, but the fundamental demand backdrop has not changed. Cloud providers continue to expand AI infrastructure, and the supply of HBM chips still lags well behind orders, giving manufacturers like SK Hynix significant pricing power.

The volatility has already spawned new trading instruments. Four leveraged single-stock ETFs on SK Hynix launched this week — two from Direxion and two from GraniteShares — allowing traders to place magnified bets on daily price moves. The products underscore the intense interest generated by the Nasdaq listing, even as they add fuel to the daily swings.

Louis Kondratev, a trader at XFUNDs, placed the action in a broader context. The semiconductor sector, he notes, has become extremely crowded after a long AI rally, now representing roughly 20% of the S&P 500. For comparison, that weight was about 8% during the dot-com bubble in 2000 and has historically ranged between 2% and 5%. Such concentration leaves the sector vulnerable to sharp reversals, regardless of individual company fundamentals.

SK Hynix is pressing ahead with capacity expansion, directing IPO proceeds toward the first phase of the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster and new EUV lithography tools. The M15X fab and a packaging plant in Indiana are also being built to serve the AI infrastructure boom. Whether the wild price swings subside in coming weeks will likely depend on how the relationship between the US-listed ADS and the Korean common stock settles. Until then, the message from the chairman is clear: patience, not panic.