hynix

Garrett Jin released this week's market report, characterizing the rebound in the South Korean market as a wide-ranging fluctuation rather than a new trend. SK Hynix rebounded continuously after retesting the 1.42 million won area, closing up 5.9% at 1,593,000 won. The KOSPI has risen 20% from the July low, entering a technical bull market, but foreign capital has not shifted to long-term holdings, and the drag from leveraged ETFs remains. Garrett Jin set the first profit-taking level at $1,150 (approximately 1.63 million won), with the next target at $1,300 (1.85 million won).Garrett Jin also noted that gold recorded its strongest weekly gain since January this week at +7.8%, priced at $4,388. The driving factors were a decrease of 23,000 in July non-farm payrolls and a moderate CPI that dampened September rate hike expectations. However, it is currently overbought in the short term, and a pullback could present an opportunity for incremental accumulation. Bitcoin has shown no response to the same macro-positive factors, remaining trapped between the support at $62,500 and resistance at $65,000-$70,000, with the bottom structure since $57,700 gradually being built. Garrett Jin will wait for the next buying opportunity after a pullback.Regarding SpaceX, Garrett Jin believes the recent performance is a classic case of "bad news fully priced in + short squeeze," with the unlocking itself becoming a washout rather than the starting point of a decline. However, the unlocking window has not yet ended, with an additional 319 million shares to be unlocked, approximately 700 million shares each in September and October. The current range up to $160 is a profit-taking zone rather than a high-entry zone.

According to Gate market data, the Nasdaq index rose by 1%, with SanDisk (SNDK.O) and SK Hynix both increasing by over 4%.

According to Gate market data, U.S. stocks closed on Wednesday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average initially down 0.04%, the S&P 500 index up 0.26%, and the Nasdaq up 0.54%. SK Hynix rose 9%, SpaceX rose 9.6%, Nvidia rose 3%, and Micron Technology rose 4.9%. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index closed down 2.4%, Alibaba fell 2%, and NetEase fell 2.9%.

According to a report by South Korea's Asia Economy, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek has decided to invest in the South Korean stock market for the first time, having selected Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as investment targets, and is in contact with the South Korean government to discuss the timing of fund execution. Temasek manages assets of approximately 518 billion Singapore dollars (about 572 trillion Korean won), and this investment will be managed internally rather than through external asset management.Temasek believes that the storage semiconductor sector in the AI value chain is undervalued by the market. Recently, it has been increasing its investments in AI-related fields and already holds shares in semiconductor giants such as Nvidia, TSMC, and ASML, and is also one of the major institutional investors in OpenAI and Anthropic. Temasek plans to increase the proportion of AI-related investments from the current 6% to a maximum of 15% over the next five years. If executed smoothly, this will be Temasek's first direct entry into the South Korean stock market.

SK Hynix has restarted the construction of its second NAND flash memory factory in Dalian, expecting to increase the monthly production capacity in the region by about 50%. The new production line is designed for a monthly capacity of approximately 50,000 wafers, combined with the existing Dalian Plant 1's monthly capacity of 100,000 wafers, bringing SK Hynix's total NAND production capacity in China to about 150,000 wafers per month. The factory began construction four years ago but was paused due to the downturn in the memory chip market and U.S. export restrictions on equipment to China, having only completed the structural framework.The investment in Dalian Plant 2 is driven by SK Hynix's NAND subsidiary Solidigm, with equipment installation expected to start as early as November this year, and plans to establish a mass production system in the first half of next year. Driven by the expansion of AI data centers, demand for enterprise-level SSDs has surged, with NAND prices rising nearly tenfold compared to a year ago, prompting the restart of investments. SK Hynix will adopt a dual-track strategy: the Dalian factory will use Intel's mature floating gate architecture to produce NAND at the hundred-layer level, while domestic factories like Cheongju M17 will focus on advanced NAND production of over 300 layers, the latter having announced an investment of 19.1 trillion won. Industry insiders expect that the equipment configuration of Dalian Plant 2 will be similar to that of Plant 1, maintaining a monthly production capacity in the range of 40,000 to 60,000 wafers.

According to Nikkei News, the largest shareholder of the Japanese NAND manufacturer Kioxia has changed from Toshiba to the special purpose company BCPE Pangea Cayman 2 (SPC2), which holds 14.19% of Kioxia's shares, slightly higher than Toshiba's reduced stake of 14.06%. SPC2 is the entity through which SK Hynix invested via convertible bonds (CB).From July 15 to August 3, Toshiba reduced its stake in Kioxia in seven transactions, decreasing its holding from 15.10% to 14.06%. In 2018, SK Hynix invested approximately 40 trillion won in Kioxia through two SPCs, one of which, SPC1, co-funded with Bain Capital, completed its share sale when Bain Capital exited in June this year, while SPC2, which was solely funded by SK Hynix with about 13 trillion won, continues to hold its shares. If the CB is converted into stock, SK Hynix will gain voting rights. However, industry assessments suggest that the actual impact on Kioxia's operations is likely low, as exercising voting rights requires approval from various countries' competition and antitrust authorities. The Japanese government may not easily approve this due to considerations for protecting its domestic semiconductor supply chain. Kioxia is currently the third-largest NAND manufacturer in the world, following Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

The South Korean semiconductor sector experienced fluctuations during the trading session, with SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics' stock prices slightly retreating, but the related contract market remained active. According to Gate market data, SK Hynix (000660) reported $1002.56 during the session, down 0.21%; Samsung Electronics (005930) reported $162.15 during the session, down 0.64%. According to CoinGlass data, the SKHYNIX contract open interest reached $693 million, of which the SKHYNIX contract open interest on the Gate platform reached $131 million, ranking second in the entire network; the SAMSUNG contract open interest reached $45.2207 million, of which the SAMSUNG contract open interest on the Gate platform reached $6.19 million, also ranking second in the entire network.

SK Hynix stated in a recent article that the competition in AI is shifting from the performance of individual chips to the design and operation of the entire infrastructure architecture. The competitiveness of AI data centers no longer depends on individual components, but on whether the five key elements of computing, memory, storage, networking, and power cooling can be seamlessly integrated.The article points out that the continuous expansion of AI model scales has led to a surge in demand for computing power and data movement. Training requires repeatedly reading massive datasets, while inference relies on quickly retrieving user request information, both of which place higher demands on the system architecture of data centers. At the memory level, HBM, server DRAM, and others have formed a hierarchical system, each undertaking different bandwidth and capacity tasks. At the networking level, as large-scale training and inference rely on multi-server parallel processing, networking has become a key factor determining the scalability of data centers. System design is shifting from single-server to whole rack and cluster-level expansion.According to Omdia's forecast, the AI data center chip market will grow from $123 billion in 2024 to $207 billion in 2025, reaching $286 billion by 2030. SK Hynix also mentioned that Microsoft's Fairwater data center in Wisconsin is about the length of five football fields, indicating that infrastructure is being deployed on a larger scale. SK Hynix emphasizes that memory is becoming a key layer connecting computing and data.

According to the Korea Economic Daily, SK Hynix is preparing a shareholder return plan that includes stock buybacks and cash dividends, with a total scale expected to be about 100 trillion won (approximately 71 billion USD).Among them, the stock buyback scale is expected to reach 40 trillion won (approximately 28.4 billion USD), accounting for more than 2% of the company's total issued shares. This scale is close to the proportion of new shares issued for the American Depositary Receipts (ADR) listing previously by SK Hynix.Compared to last year's shareholder return scale of about 14.3 trillion won (including about 2.1 trillion won in cash dividends and about 12.2 trillion won in stock cancellations), this plan's scale has increased by about 7 times.Behind SK Hynix's large-scale return plan is its leading position in the AI infrastructure core storage HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) market. The company expects revenue of about 345.6 trillion won this year, with operating profit of about 266.4 trillion won, representing year-on-year growth of approximately 256% and 464%, respectively.Previously, SK Hynix stated in its earnings call that HBM4 shipments will officially ramp up in the second half of the year, while advanced process DRAM shipments will also increase, with overall shipments expected to be higher than in the first half.Market institutions believe that as the demand for AI computing power continues to grow, SK Hynix's improved profitability may drive a recovery in the company's valuation. HSBC previously pointed out that the market's pricing of SK Hynix's profit cycle has been relatively pessimistic, and this shareholder return plan may become one of the important factors for valuation improvement.

"1011 Insider Whale" agent Garrett Jin released a weekly analysis stating that he previously suggested gradually positioning in storage chips and buying on dips, but the market did not experience the expected pullback. He has sold half of the previously rebounded positions during the surge, not because the investment logic has changed, but because he noticed the funding structure driving the rise, stating, "This is more like a short squeeze rather than a final confirmation of the market fundamentals." Rapid capital replenishment of short positions can create short-term increases in stocks like SK Hynix, but cannot solely support a sustained trend. The risks of Korean leveraged ETFs have not been fully released, but the decline in asset scale mainly comes from net value shrinkage rather than investor exit. Currently, the cumulative net subscription of related financial products remains at historical highs and has not turned negative.Garrett Jin emphasized that the decline in the scale of Korean leveraged ETFs does not indicate a bearish outlook on storage demand. SK Hynix's 2026 capacity is already sold out, and Micron's orders are covered until 2028, with strong demand expected to continue until the second half of 2027. However, the storage industry is essentially a cyclical industry, and stock prices have already risen by hundreds of percentage points in advance. Cyclical stocks are usually difficult to sustain long-term growth through valuation expansion. The current market is entering a new phase of the AI capital expenditure cycle, shifting from "rewarding investment" to "evaluating investment returns." Regarding Bitcoin, Garrett Jin stated that it continues to meet the bottoming conditions since the low in July and maintains the position view established around $60,000.

SK Hynix plans to invest 35.2 trillion won in the second phase of chip factory construction in Yongin, South Korea.

SK Hynix announced a dividend of 375 Korean won per share and will announce the shareholder return policy plan in the third quarter, considering additional shareholder return measures.

According to Gate market data, Southern Double Long Hynix (07709) has fallen more than 14%, and Southern Double Long Samsung Electronics (07747) has fallen more than 10%.

According to Gate market data, the South Korean KOSPI index has expanded its decline to 3%, SK Hynix's stock price has dropped by 7%, and Samsung Electronics has fallen by nearly 3%.

According to South Korea's Digital Daily, Apple has recently negotiated with Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) on the supply prices of mobile DRAM such as LPDDR5X to reduce costs for the next generation of iPhones and smart devices, but was rejected. Changxin Memory insists on maintaining a price level comparable to or even higher than that of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, breaking Apple's usual bargaining advantage as an end manufacturer.The report analyzes that Chinese terminal companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi have locked in a large amount of Changxin Memory's production capacity through long-term high-price contracts, providing a solid price defense line in the domestic market. Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are facing reduced supply of general DRAM due to the continuous expansion of HBM capacity, combined with Changxin Memory holding the price floor, significantly alleviating the shipping pressure and price decline risks for Korean manufacturers in the general DRAM sector, allowing them to focus resources on high-value AI storage products such as HBM4, LPCAMM2, and eSSD. Industry insiders expect that in the second half of the year, the operating profit margins of the Korean semiconductor camp and global market pricing power will further strengthen.

Citrini analyst jukan posted on platform X, stating that South Korean media reported that SK hynix subsidiary Solidigm is seeking pre-IPO financing, possibly preparing for a NASDAQ listing.The report stated that the company's target valuation in this round of financing is 50 trillion won. Solidigm is the U.S. subsidiary established by SK hynix in 2021 to take over Intel's NAND flash and SSD business, which SK hynix agreed to acquire for about 10 trillion won in 2020.

According to Reuters, citing three informed sources, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are testing the etching equipment from Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturer AMEC to assess its potential application in their factories in China, aiming to hedge against the risk of the U.S. potentially tightening export controls in the future. The testing began about two years ago, coinciding with rising uncertainty over whether the U.S. would allow Korean companies to import U.S.-made chip equipment to China.The report noted that although no decision has yet been made on large-scale deployment, verification from Samsung or SK Hynix would be an important commercial endorsement for AMEC. The gap in etching, deposition, cleaning, and other areas for Chinese equipment has gradually narrowed, with prices typically 20%-30% lower than similar overseas products. Samsung officially denied having tested AMEC equipment for its factories in China, while SK Hynix declined to comment. Deutsche Bank expects Northern Huachuang, AMEC, Tuojing Technology, and Shengmei Semiconductor to each exceed $1 billion in revenue by 2026, collectively expected to capture 25%-30% of China's approximately $28 billion wafer fabrication equipment market this year.

According to Gate market data, Zhongwei Company's stock price has risen over 10%. Media reports indicate that South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are evaluating chip manufacturing equipment from China's Zhongwei Semiconductor, considering using it in their factories in China.

According to Jinshi reports, Stifel has initiated coverage on SK Hynix (SKHY.O), giving it a "Buy" rating with a target price of $240.