Morning brief 10:22 AM ET

Memory Report — 2026-07-15

Memory's whipsaw week found its footing Wednesday, as SK Hynix jumped nearly 13% in Seoul while Samsung climbed almost 8%, a sharp reversal from Monday's record rout that reframes the selloff as sentiment, not fundamentals.

The bounce came on external tailwinds more than fresh memory catalysts. Shares in SK Hynix jumped nearly 13% in Seoul on Wednesday, tracking gains in U.S. tech stocks after softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data, while upbeat analyst views on the outlook for AI memory demand also supported sentiment, with Samsung rising nearly 8% and chip equipment maker Hanmi Semiconductor gaining about 25% in early trade. That undoes only part of the damage. The Kospi plunged 8.95% on July 13 to close at 6,806.93, surrendering the 7,000 level, with Samsung and SK Hynix tumbling 10.70% and 15.37% respectively and triggering the year's seventh circuit breaker. That 15.37% drop was SK Hynix's largest single-day decline in roughly 17 years, surpassing the 14.93% fall during the 2008 financial crisis. The trigger was narrow: a Korea Investment & Securities morning note projected SK Hynix's Q2 2026 operating profit at roughly 60.4 trillion won, a 556% surge over the year prior but about 8% below the 65 trillion won consensus. Notably, the firm maintained its Buy rating and stated directly that the revision was not driven by deteriorating fundamentals. The real issue is a good problem to have: SK Hynix's high HBM revenue exposure limits the average selling price benefits it captures from rising commodity memory prices.

Pricing confirms the shortage is structural. TrendForce's latest survey shows the DRAM market remaining extremely tight in Q3 2026, though weaker consumer demand and a higher base moderate contract price increases to 13-18% QoQ, while NAND Flash contract prices are projected to increase 10-15% QoQ. On June 30, TrendForce raised its Q3 PC DRAM contract-price growth forecast from 8-13% to 15-20%, and Q4 from 0-5% to 3-8%. The clearest read on scarcity came Wednesday from Meritz: senior analyst Kim Sunwoo said DRAM suppliers are currently meeting only about 75% to 80% of demand as second-half shortages intensify, and that fulfillment could fall into the 60% range in 2027.

On the AI front, the supplier chessboard keeps expanding. Korean media reports say Samsung Foundry has reportedly secured a contract to manufacture Anthropic's AI chips, a claim neither company has confirmed. The chips would reportedly use Samsung Foundry's 2nm process and advanced packaging, building on earlier reporting that Samsung joined SK Hynix and Micron as a strategic investor in Anthropic's $65 billion Series H round in May. Treat the foundry "deal" as rumor until Samsung or Anthropic says otherwise. Capacity commitments, by contrast, are concrete: Samsung Group and SK Group announced a decade-long combined investment of $518 billion to build four memory-chip plants in South Korea.

Watch Friday's Big Tech earnings and any move to close the SK Hynix ADR-versus-Seoul premium once two-way conversion opens after July 29, either of which could set the tape's next direction.

July 15th, 2026

Memory Report — 2026-07-15

Sources