South Korean 2026-08-20 04:35:24Korean stocks rebound as KOSPI jumps over 5%, chip names lead on policy relief and shareholder return plansSouth Korean equities staged a sharp rebound, with the KOSPI rising more than 5% to 6848.81 at the time of writing and chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics posting outsized gains. The move came after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the buyback size for 10- to 30-year Treasury bonds would be increased from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, a step aimed at cooling yields that had been sitting near multi-decade highs. After the announcement, the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield eased to 5.18%, while the three major U.S. stock indexes closed modestly higher overnight. Company-specific news added support. SK Hynix said on Aug. 19 that it would buy back and cancel about 24.07 million treasury shares over the next three months, worth KRW 40 trillion, or about $28.6 billion, equal to 3.3% of shares outstanding. It also raised its 2025-2027 shareholder return target to more than 50% of cumulative free cash flow. Samsung Electronics was also helped by reports of price increases of as much as 15% for some new advanced foundry orders and expectations that it will soon disclose details of its shareholder return policy. HSBC has upgraded South Korean equities to overweight from neutral.740
SK Hynix2026-08-19 12:50:21SK Hynix rally lifts 07709 as Binance pushes deeper into Asian stock derivativesSK Hynix said on Aug. 19 it would carry out a 40 trillion won share buyback and cancellation plan, the largest such move in South Korean corporate history according to the source article, while also pledging to return more than 50% of free cash flow to shareholders from 2025 to 2027. The announcement lifted SK Hynix shares by about 6% and sent the Hong Kong-listed CSOP 2x Long SK Hynix product, 07709.HK, up more than 20% during the session. The article says 07709, one of the most closely watched and best-performing equity ETPs of the past year, was listed on Binance a week earlier alongside products tied to Kuaishou, Meituan and a 2x long Samsung Electronics vehicle. Since its Binance debut, the related product’s price has climbed as much as 59%, with 24-hour trading volume topping $24.6 million as of 16:00 on Aug. 19. The report frames 07709’s rise as part of a broader convergence between crypto and traditional finance. It links the product’s popularity to SK Hynix’s position in the AI memory trade, citing a 64% global HBM market share, strong ties with Nvidia, sold-out 2026 HBM capacity, and first-quarter 2026 revenue of 52.58 trillion won and net profit of 40.35 trillion won. It also says Binance is using Asian stock perpetuals to expand its TradFi and RWA derivatives lineup.1690
Apple2026-08-15 20:43:37U.S. commerce secretary opposes Apple sourcing memory chips from CXMT and YMTCU.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Aug. 14 that the Trump administration does not support Apple buying DRAM and NAND chips from Chinese suppliers ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC). The stance puts added pressure on Apple as it weighs memory sourcing at a time when AI-driven demand has pushed costs higher. Apple had previously been testing DRAM from CXMT and was also in talks with YMTC over NAND supply, with the plan limited to products for non-U.S. markets. According to the report, YMTC has been on the U.S. Entity List since 2022, while CXMT was added to a military-related company list in 2025. Micron Technology has also been lobbying against the procurement approach. Apple now faces an Aug. 21 deadline to commit to dropping the two Chinese suppliers.1540
SK Hynix2026-08-14 14:13:41SK Hynix lifts first-half capital spending 72.7% as AI memory demand climbsSK Hynix sharply increased both capital expenditures and research spending in the first half of the year as demand for AI memory products kept rising, according to a report cited by Korean media on Aug. 14. The company’s semiannual report showed that cash outlays for the acquisition of tangible assets reached KRW 18.3288 trillion on a consolidated basis, up 72.7% from KRW 10.6157 trillion a year earlier. R&D spending also expanded significantly, rising 98.4% year over year to KRW 6.0428 trillion from KRW 3.0456 trillion. Of that amount, KRW 5.8163 trillion was allocated to ongoing development costs. The report said SK Hynix is accelerating the expansion of production facilities as demand continues to grow for AI-focused high bandwidth memory, server DRAM, and enterprise solid-state drives. The figures point to a substantial increase in investment tied to the company’s effort to meet rising memory demand in AI-related segments.1650
Samsung Elect2026-08-12 10:24:34Samsung and SK Hynix are said to be weighing shareholder returns topping $141.3 billionSamsung Electronics and SK Hynix are preparing what local media described as the largest shareholder return program in South Korean corporate history, with the combined total potentially reaching 200 trillion won, or about $141.3 billion. According to Seoul Economic Daily, the packages could include special dividends, treasury share buybacks and share cancellations, with an announcement expected as early as late August and no later than September. SK Hynix is reportedly considering a plan worth around 100 trillion won, split between 40 trillion won in buybacks and 60 trillion won in cash dividends. For Samsung, broker estimates vary more widely, ranging from 130 trillion won to 200 trillion won, helped by free cash flow that could reach 200 trillion won this year. Hana Securities estimated a 130 trillion to 150 trillion won plan, while KB Securities projected as much as 200 trillion won. The report lifted both stocks on Aug. 12. Samsung closed at 255,500 won, up 6.68%, while SK Hynix ended at 1,504,000 won, up 5.54%.1990
UBS2026-08-11 05:31:27UBS keeps Buy on Micron, says AI memory shortage still supports earnings re-ratingUBS maintained its Buy rating on Micron and kept a $1,625 price target in its latest report, implying about 85% upside from the stock’s Aug. 7 close of $877.57. The bank said short-term noise has emerged in NAND pricing, but supply-demand tightness in DRAM, especially high-bandwidth memory, has exceeded its earlier expectations. The note came after a sharp swing in storage names. SanDisk and Western Digital fell after earnings guidance missed elevated expectations, weighing on sentiment around the AI memory supply chain. Micron then slipped modestly after reports that Apple had tested memory chips from China’s CXMT. Even so, UBS said the market’s pricing of the AI memory cycle has not broken down. UBS centered its thesis on HBM, raising its estimate for 2027 total HBM consumption to 61.5 billion Gb from 58.7 billion Gb as more VR300 units enter the supply chain, despite lower HBM capacity per GPU than previously expected. It also projected stronger pricing across HBM and DDR, while arguing DRAM will remain in undersupply at least through the second quarter of 2028. On earnings, UBS trimmed Micron’s fiscal 2026 and 2027 EPS forecasts, raised its fiscal 2028 EPS estimate, and said cumulative free cash flow could exceed $450 billion by 2028.2750
Bitcoin2026-08-08 06:56:25Garrett Jin keeps his $60,000 BTC entry view and avoids chasing AI memory stocks higherGarrett Jin, described by Odaily as the representative of the "1011 insider whale," said in his latest weekly market note that he is keeping the Bitcoin position built around $60,000 and has not changed that view since BTC neared a low of roughly $57,700 in July. In his view, the market has continued to meet bottoming conditions since that point. Jin also said gold, which had previously remained on his watchlist, has now broken out of its consolidation range and shifted into a long-term allocation opportunity, with the thesis still tied to a longer-term weakening trend in the U.S. dollar. On AI memory, he said he had earlier advised gradual positioning in memory-chip names and buying on dips, but the market moved higher without the pullback he had expected. He therefore sold half of a rebound position, not because the demand thesis had changed, but because he sees the latest short-term move as being driven more by capital structure factors. Jin added that risks tied to Korean leveraged ETFs have not fully cleared, and while JPMorgan said related exposure had fallen 66% from its peak, his own estimate puts the drop at about 38%, largely because of lower net asset values rather than investor exits.2330
SK Hynix2026-08-07 08:13:17SK Hynix approves $38.4 billion for Yongin and Cheongju memory fabs, moves Yongin timeline up by 12 yearsSK Hynix’s board on Aug. 7 approved 54.3 trillion won, or about $38.4 billion, for two new domestic memory fabs in South Korea. The larger allocation, 35.2 trillion won, will go to the Y2 DRAM fab in the Yongin semiconductor cluster, while 19.1 trillion won will fund the M17 NAND fab in Cheongju. Y2 is set to produce high-bandwidth memory and next-generation DRAM, and M17 will make NAND for enterprise SSDs. The decision materially changes the Yongin cluster’s buildout schedule. With Y2 added, the target completion date for the cluster’s fourth fab has been pulled forward from 2045 to 2033, a 12-year acceleration. Even so, the first cleanroom openings remain some distance away: December 2028 for M17 and June 2029 for Y2. The report notes that equipment installation, trial runs, and ramp-up would still follow those dates. The scale of the commitment stands out against SK Hynix’s balance sheet. The 54.3 trillion won approval amounts to roughly 60% of the company’s 88 trillion won in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter. The article also says SK Hynix raised $26.5 billion last month through an American depositary receipt listing in the U.S., leaving a gap of $11.9 billion versus the newly announced investment amount that would need to be covered by internal cash flow.2150
