SK hynix shares plunge record 15.4% in Seoul after $26.5 billion Nasdaq debut

SK hynix’s Seoul-listed shares fell 15.4% on Monday, July 13, the largest single-day drop in the South Korean memory-chip maker’s history and only two trading days after its record Nasdaq debut.

The July 10 listing of American depositary receipts raised $26.51 billion, the largest share sale by a non-US company on record; the receipts had closed up 12.8% on their first day. On Monday the same ADRs fell 9.2% to $152.50 in pre-market trading.

The selloff spread. The Kospi index dropped 9%, triggering a 20-minute trading halt, and Samsung Electronics fell nearly 11%. SK hynix’s market value slid to $875 billion from a prior $1 trillion peak, and overseas investors sold roughly 1.7 trillion won, about $1.1 billion, of Kospi-listed stock, most of it SK hynix.

Ryu Young-ho, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities, tied the drop to investor disappointment over HBM4 high-bandwidth memory shipment volumes that did not materialize as expected in the second quarter. Chan H. Lee attributed part of the move to profit-taking after what he called ‘a widely anticipated event.’

The reversal shows how quickly enthusiasm for AI-memory suppliers can turn when shipment numbers lag the story.