SK Hynix Plunges 14.6% But Brokers Rush to Lift Targets: A $64 Billion Bet Divides the Street

Despite worst single-day drop, Korean brokerages hike price targets on strong earnings outlook. SK Hynix plans $64.4B in new chip facilities, including NAND fab. Stock still up 230% YTD.

SK Hynix suffered its worst single-day rout in years on Thursday, yet a chorus of Korean brokerages responded not with downgrades but with sharply higher price targets. The memory giant’s stock opened under heavy pressure and slid through the session, initially falling 12.81 percent to 2,232,000 Won before extending the sell-off to close at 2,187,000 Won — a 14.57 percent drop. The carnage leaves the shares 25.28 percent below the all-time high of 2,987,000 Won touched on June 25. Even so, the stock remains up 229.69 percent since the start of the year.

The rout was not confined to Seoul. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite’s overnight slide triggered a broader sell-off in Asia, pulling South Korea’s Kospi index lower. Samsung Electronics closed 9.06 percent lower at 286,000 Won, SK Square — SK Hynix’s largest shareholder — shed more than 10 percent, and in the US Micron Technology tumbled over 10 percent despite being up 260 percent year-to-date. Sandisk also lost more than a tenth of its value.

Yet as the share price cratered, at least two Korean brokerages lifted their targets. IBK Investment & Securities jumped from 1.8 million to 4 million Won, keeping a buy rating. Analyst Kim Woon-ho forecasts second-quarter 2026 revenue of 78.968 trillion Won, a 50.2 percent sequential gain, and operating profit of 61 trillion Won — a 62.3 percent quarter-on-quarter improvement. That would mark the 11th straight quarter of earnings beats, according to Kim. NH Investment & Securities was even more bullish: analyst Ryu Young-ho raised his 2026 and 2027 profit estimates to 289.4 trillion and 470 trillion Won respectively, and sees Q2 revenue at 85.3 trillion Won with operating profit of 66.2 trillion Won — a 618.7 percent surge from a year earlier.

Ryu also argued that SK Hynix remains cheap relative to peers. The stock trades at roughly six times expected forward twelve-month earnings, compared with 7.9 times for Micron and 12.6 times for Sandisk.

The plunge coincided with the announcement of a massive capital spending plan. SK Hynix intends to invest around 64.4 billion dollars in new chip facilities, including a NAND flash fab. CEO Kwak Noh-jung said construction of the M17 plant will start next year, with operations scheduled for the first half of 2029. Of the total, 80 trillion Won is earmarked for the NAND facility and another 20 trillion Won for a packaging and test plant in Cheongju. The Cheongju projects are part of a broader 2.1 trillion dollar investment program unveiled jointly by SK Hynix and Samsung.

Not everyone is convinced. Investor Michael Burry, famous for betting against US subprime mortgages in 2008, called the Korean semiconductor spending spree "the beginning of the end" in a note to subscribers, casting doubt on whether the enormous AI-related outlays will generate adequate returns.

Adding to the uncertainty, SK Hynix is preparing to list American Depositary Receipts on the Nasdaq on July 10. The proceeds will mainly fund capacity expansions, including a first fab in the Yongin cluster and an advanced packaging facility in Cheongju for HBM assembly and testing. The company holds roughly 58 percent of the global HBM market by revenue, a position that has made it a key beneficiary of the AI build-out. Yet the legal overhang remains: a class-action lawsuit filed by US consumers and PC makers in late June accuses SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron of colluding on DRAM prices.

Despite the violent swing, the stock still sits about 10 percent above its 50-day moving average of 2,021,940 Won. The annualized 30-day volatility of 112.47 percent underscores how jittery the market has become. Whether the analysts’ optimistic earnings forecasts materialize will likely be tested when SK Hynix reports second-quarter results — a report that could determine whether the current rout is a buying opportunity or the beginning of a deeper correction.