SEOUL, May 25, 2026, 23:03 KST
- Korean markets didn’t open on Monday because of the Buddha’s Birthday holiday. SK hynix last traded on Friday.
- The stock closed at 1,941,000 won on May 22, a touch under its recent high. Trading was choppy this week, pushed around by Nvidia-related chip news, headlines about Samsung labor, and foreigners selling.
- Korean traders have a short week, with Samsung union members heading to a vote and new leveraged notes linked to SK hynix and Samsung out. Eyes remain on whether AI-memory buying is enough to keep the KOSPI moving.
SK hynix Inc. trades close to record highs as South Korea’s market stays shut Monday for the Buddha’s Birthday substitute holiday. The Korea Stock Exchange in Seoul, which runs on Korean Standard Time, did not open May 25. It will reopen Tuesday.
The memory-chip maker finished at 1,941,000 won on May 22, up 1,000 won, or 0.05%. The shares are off the recent 1,995,000 won high but remain among the key drivers in a chip-led Seoul rally.
SK hynix is now a key market read on demand for artificial intelligence hardware, as high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stays scarce. These HBM chips, stacked for speed into AI processors, remain hard to get. Last month the company posted first-quarter revenue of 52.5763 trillion won, operating profit of 37.6103 trillion won and net profit of 40.3459 trillion won, its best-ever quarter.
The stock gained roughly 6.7% for the week, up from 1,819,000 won at the May 15 close to 1,941,000 won by Friday. The climb was choppy. Shares moved up on hopes for AI memory but then saw profit-taking and some worry about crowding in the trade.
Foreign investors signaled trouble for the market. According to Yonhap on Monday, overseas funds offloaded 10 trillion won in Samsung Electronics and SK hynix last week. That breaks down to 5.33 trillion won in SK hynix and 5.26 trillion won in Samsung Electronics shares from May 18. The two names made up around 73% of total foreign net selling in Korean stocks during that stretch.
Regulators weighed in too. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission put out a warning to investors before the rollout of single-stock leveraged products linked to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, saying both chip stocks might swing on global semiconductor news. Leveraged products use borrowing or derivatives to try for double the daily move. The planned ETFs and ETNs will look to track daily gains or losses at two times the movement in the underlying shares.
The FSC’s warning comes as Seoul Economic Daily said 16 exchange-traded funds and two exchange-traded notes linked to Samsung and SK hynix were set to list on the 27th of this month. Regulators told the paper that these kinds of products can rack up quick losses if prices jump around. ETNs are debt securities that follow an asset or index, but, different from ETFs, investors also take on issuer credit risk.
Samsung is still the closest competitor in the market. Last week’s wage deal at Samsung boosted memory names across the board. Reuters said Samsung shares jumped as the company reached a government-brokered deal with its union, which called off a planned 18-day strike by around 48,000 workers that risked disrupting chip supply.
The deal also underlined pressure from SK hynix on bigger rival Samsung. Samsung workers had complained about missing out on bonuses compared to SK hynix, after SK hynix beat them in shipping advanced AI memory to Nvidia, Reuters said. “Samsung did a better deal than SK hynix in terms of costs,” Park Jun-young, a former Samsung chip HR official who covers the industry now, told Reuters. Reuters
SK hynix management says demand isn’t slowing down. “Client requests for (HBM) chip supplies over the next three years already far exceeds our production capacity,” said Ki Tae Kim, head of HBM sales and marketing, during the earnings call, Reuters reported. The company expects the good pricing to hold up for now as AI demand keeps outpacing softer PC and smartphone business. Reuters
KOSPI kept tracking the same big names on Friday. Seoul Economic Daily said the index finished at 7,847.71, up 0.41%. Markets open again Tuesday after the holiday. “Stock price volatility has recently expanded due to issues such as the Samsung Electronics union strike, but in a volatile market, what ultimately matters is earnings and valuation,” said Na Jung-hwan, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities. Seoul Economic Daily
AI memory trades are running hot, and there’s not much space for letdowns. Any pullback in HBM demand from Nvidia or other AI-chip buyers, more foreign money leaving Korean chip stocks, or hiccups with new leveraged single-stock products could sour what’s already a quiet holiday week. Investors mostly shrugged off Samsung’s union issues after last week’s tentative deal, but voting runs through May 27, so that’s not settled yet.
SK hynix is already seen as a growth story, so traders this week are looking past that. The focus is on whether the market is ready to keep paying higher prices after a 2026 rally that’s turned the Korean memory stock into a global AI bellwether.
