MR. Reports

July 6th, 2026

Morning brief · 9:17 AM ET. Afternoon updates post on their own page when the news warrants.

Morning brief 9:17 AM ET

Memory Report — 2026-07-06

SK Hynix is set to price the largest first-time US share sale ever attempted by a foreign company this week, a $29 billion Nasdaq debut that doubles as a referendum on how much investors will pay for pure AI-memory exposure.

The deal itself is the day's headline. SK Hynix will launch its roughly $29 billion Nasdaq listing this week, selling 17.79 million new shares, in a deal expected to rank second only to SpaceX's $85.7 billion IPO last month. Pricing gets fixed Thursday, with the shares set to begin trading the following day, Friday, under the ticker SKHY, each common share represented by ten ADRs. The scale is not trivial: the offering would eclipse both Alibaba's 2014 US listing and Saudi Aramco's $25.6 billion IPO from 2019, according to Reuters. The strategic logic is a valuation re-rate. For years the South Korea-based manufacturer has traded at a discount to its chief US-based rival, Micron, and tapping the world's deepest equity market and its frenzy for AI could help change that. As of Q1, the fundamentals justify the attention: SK Hynix ranked second globally in DRAM at 29.1% revenue share, first in HBM at 56.4%, and second in NAND at 18.5%.

The listing lands on a market that has just wobbled without breaking. SK Hynix's Korea-listed stock is up 770% over the last twelve months even after a 20% selloff from its June peak, outpacing Micron's 700% rally, and SK Hynix remains the top supplier of high-bandwidth memory after becoming Nvidia's favorite provider. That pullback is context, not thesis-breaker. The pricing signal underneath is still one direction. DRAM contract prices continue to rise, driven by tight supply and expectations of negative production growth, with low inventories and strong replenishment pushing future forecasts higher.

The NAND side is now the faster mover. NAND's roughly 75% QoQ increase outpaces DRAM for the first time in the current cycle, while enterprise SSD demand hasn't let up as large-scale generative AI deployments absorb the lion's share of capacity. Supply relief remains years out. TrendForce expects a pronounced shortage through 2026, with new fab capacity unlikely to come online in volume before late 2027 or 2028, as cloud providers commit to multi-quarter agreements to guarantee allocation. Micron, meanwhile, is planting its own long-dated flag: reports point to a roughly $9.3 billion HBM expansion in Hiroshima backed by up to $3.1 billion in Japanese government support, with output targeted around 2028.

Watch Thursday's pricing and Friday's open. Thursday's pricing will show how much US investors will pay for exposure to the AI memory trade, and after last week's shakeout, SKHY's debut is the cleanest near-term read on whether the structural bull case still commands a premium.

Sources

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