Shares cratered as SK Hynix delivered a historic quarter that still wasn't good enough. Operating profit surged 557% year-on-year to ₩60.54 trillion, yet the stock dropped 9.6% on Wednesday, triggering a circuit breaker on the KOSPI after an 8% index drop — the second consecutive session of market-wide halts . The message from the market is blunt: at current valuations, even record numbers can't justify the price if they fall short of sky-high expectations.
Record Revenue Still Missed the Bar by a Wide Margin. Revenue hit ₩79.32 trillion ($54.5 billion), up 257% year-over-year, but fell short of the ₩84 trillion analysts expected . Operating profit likewise missed a consensus target of ₩64 trillion . Preliminary revenue and operating profit came in roughly 5.6% and 5.4% below estimates . For a stock that had run up nearly 300% from its 2025 lows, that gap was enough to trigger massive profit-taking — investors who rode the rally simply cashed out.
A Chinese Rival Just Got $8.6 Billion in Fresh Ammunition. CXMT's blockbuster Shanghai IPO — shares soared over 500% on debut — made it the world's fourth-largest DRAM maker at 8% market share . By year-end, CXMT is expected to reach roughly 350,000 wafers per month, just below Micron's ~385,000 . Apple is reportedly testing CXMT's chips , raising the specter that Chinese-made memory could reach top-tier customers faster than investors assumed. While CXMT's plans for high-bandwidth memory (the premium chips used in AI servers) weren't included in its IPO prospectus, and the technology gap with leaders remains wide , the mere possibility of new supply pressuring prices is enough to weigh on the entire sector's profit outlook.
The Balance Sheet Is a Fortress — If Demand Holds. SK Hynix ended Q2 with ₩88 trillion in cash and just ₩18.6 trillion in debt — net cash of ₩69.4 trillion . Operating margins hit 76% . The company has locked in multi-year contracts with roughly 10 key customers . These are fortress-level numbers, but if memory prices normalize, today's earnings may represent a peak, making the stock look far less cheap than forward estimates suggest .
Leveraged Bets Turned a Correction Into a Crisis. The largest single-stock leveraged ETF tracking SK Hynix collapsed 45–47% despite the record results, as margin calls and forced liquidations amplified selling pressure . Regulators responded by requiring a ₩30 million cash deposit starting July 31 . The structural lesson: when retail leverage meets an earnings miss in a concentrated market, the downdraft feeds on itself.