SK Hynix Stock Soars in Biggest US Listing Ever by a Foreign Company

U.S.-listed shares of SK Hynix surged in their first day of trading Friday a sign investors remain eager to own the chief beneficiaries of the AI-driven memory shortage. SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron have all pulled back from their recent records, but are still among the best-performing stocks this year after a torrid second quarter. South Korean memory-chip giant SK Hynix ( SKHYV ) soared in its American debut on Friday, suggesting U.S. investors remain bullish on memory stocks despite their recent pullback. SK Hynix American Depositary Shares, or ADSs, began trading Friday at $172, about 15% above the offering price set yesterday. The stock finished the day at $168.49, off highs of $177. SK Hynix is the largest-ever foreign listing on a U.S. exchange, netting more than $26 billion for the leading global supplier of high-bandwidth memory and NAND flash memory. The offering was reportedly seven times oversubscribed. SK Hynix’s U.S. Listing Will Test Wall Street’s Appetite For Turbulent Memory Stocks The listing comes at a critical moment for the memory and chip stocks that led the market to record highs last quarter. Shares of U.S. competitor Micron ( MU ) were up 325% since the start of the year when the company’s blow-out earnings report last month lifted them to a record high, but the stock has since slumped about 20%. SK Hynix and Korean peer Samsung have followed similar trajectories, with the latter tumbling earlier this week despite reporting a 19-fold increase in quarterly profit. Investors are debating the sustainability of the chipmakers’ meteoric growth and taking profits from the everything rally’s biggest winners. Some analysts believe the recent pullb...