U.S. equities ended Friday with all three major indexes in positive territory, while storage-related stocks moved the other way. According to BlockBeats, the S&P 500 rose 0.62% and finished at a record closing high, the Nasdaq gained 1.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.28%. For the week, the Dow advanced 2.96%, the Nasdaq climbed 5.19%, and the S&P 500 rose 3.58%, marking the biggest weekly gains for all three indexes since mid-April. Large-cap technology shares mostly moved higher. Nvidia and Tesla each rose more than 2%, while Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Meta posted modest gains. SpaceX jumped more than 15%, with the market viewing the stock as holding up after its first large-scale lock-up expiration without clear selling pressure, while long-term growth expectations improved. Gold miners also rallied as precious metals prices increased. Coeur Mining rose more than 11%, while Gold Fields and Harmony Gold climbed more than 9%, and Newmont and Kinross Gold gained more than 7%. Optical communications stocks were also strong, with Coherent up more than 13% and Applied Optoelectronics up more than 9%. Storage shares lagged. Seagate fell more than 4%, while Western Digital, SanDisk, and SK Hynix ADR each dropped more than 3%. Micron Technology slipped 0.44%. The report also said Jefferies cut its 12-month price target on SanDisk from $3,000 to $1,750, while Citi lowered its target from $2,500 to $2,100.

On Aug. 5, US memory and storage stocks opened higher, BlockBeats reported, citing data from BIT (bit.com). SanDisk and Western Digital, two storage leaders, are set to report fiscal fourth-quarter results after Wednesday's close. Seagate Technology (STX) rose 2.3%, Western Digital (WDC) gained 1.86%, SanDisk (SNDK) narrowed its decline to 0.16%, Micron Technology (MU) added 2.76%, and SK Hynix's ADR surged 5.77%.

Wall Street banks have rushed to initiate coverage on SK Hynix's US-listed ADRs, and every firm so far has come out with a Buy or Overweight rating. UBS was first, publishing a Buy on July 30 with a $204 target and warning that memory supply shortages could last into 2028. Bank of America followed with a debut note citing steady orders from US tech companies, SK Hynix's leadership in high-end memory, and the AI infrastructure buildout as the basis for a 'supercycle' earnings outlook. Rosenblatt Securities went the furthest, setting a $320 target that implies roughly 124% upside. The wave of bullish calls follows a 37% slide in the stock from its June peak, and a weekend report from HSBC arguing that the market's implied earnings cycle had shrunk from about six years to 2.7 years, with long-term trend earnings down from roughly six times 2024 levels to about two times. HSBC called the pricing excessively pessimistic. The coordinated stance from Wall Street now reinforces expectations of a valuation recovery in Korean memory-chip stocks.

SK Hynix shares rose on Aug. 5 as investors focused on the end of the company’s 25-trading-day quiet period following the issuance of its American depositary receipts, or ADRs. The stock climbed as much as 7.9% in morning trading in Seoul, outpacing Samsung Electronics, which rose 6% during the same stretch. The move also came after gains in U.S. chipmaker shares overnight. Market attention centered on whether the end of the quiet period on Aug. 4 clears the way for SK Hynix to disclose a shareholder return plan. Independent analyst Douglas Kim said he believes the company is likely to announce a major shareholder return program soon. According to Kim, the package could include a mix of share buybacks, share cancellations and a special dividend. Brokerages also added to the focus on the stock. Several firms, including William Blair, initiated coverage on SK Hynix ADRs overnight and assigned buy ratings. SK Hynix is a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips to Nvidia.

SK Hynix's U.S.-listed shares have drawn a wave of bullish calls from Wall Street following the company's Nasdaq debut. Cantor Fitzgerald set a price target of $300, more than double Monday's close of $142.72, citing sustained demand for DRAM, NAND and HBM from the ongoing AI infrastructure buildout. Analyst C.J. Muse said bit demand for memory chips could remain well ahead of supply through at least 2029. Nvidia and Alphabet are among customers signing multi-year agreements that lock in volumes, pricing, prepayments and default clauses, giving memory makers better earnings visibility. Bank of America, Stifel and Royal Bank of Canada targets are $250, $240 and $200, respectively. RBC projects operating margin will expand to 86% next year from 76% in the second quarter. Stifel cautions that technology shifts could render products obsolete and that demand is heavily concentrated among a few U.S. hyperscalers. SK Hynix's ADRs started trading on Nasdaq on a when-issued basis on July 10; the company raised roughly $26.5 billion from selling 178 million shares.

BlockBeats reported on Aug 4, citing BIT (bit.com) market data, that US storage shares rallied. Sandisk led with a 10.6% gain, Micron rose 7.75%, SK Hynix ADR added 5.51%, Western Digital gained 4.19%, and Seagate was up 3.68%.

SK Hynix has yet to unveil the shareholder return plan that parts of the market had been expecting, and the delay may be tied to post-listing disclosure limits tied to its U.S. ADR debut, according to a post by Citrini analyst Jukan citing Korean media. The report said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission restricts companies for a period after an ADR listing from disclosing material information that was not included in the prospectus, in order to avoid legal risks under U.S. securities law if newly listed firms release important items that differ from listing documents. Market participants widely see that restriction as lasting 25 days from the ADR listing date, including weekends. Since SK Hynix ADRs began trading in the U.S. on the 10th of last month, the market expects the relevant window to end after the evening of Aug. 4 in Korea time. Analysts cited in the report said SK Hynix could then announce a detailed shareholder return program at any time, potentially including share buybacks, dividends, or other capital return measures. Investors are watching the possible impact on the company’s stock price and on South Korea’s semiconductor sector.

TechFlowPost’s July 31 market roundup pulled together a wide set of developments across AI, crypto, semiconductors, US equities and macro markets. On the AI side, DeepSeek V4 Flash officially went live with improvements in speed and cost, while OpenAI cut prices for GPT-5.6 Luna by 80% and Terra by 20%, extending the model pricing war. The report also highlighted account bans affecting domestic developers using Claude, and cited a New Yorker report alleging OpenAI carried out a hacking operation targeting Hugging Face. In crypto, Conflux’s CFX debuted on Upbit with KRW, BTC and USDT pairs, Jasmy Coin was placed on Upbit’s trading warning list, and decentralized derivatives platform GRVT launched on Bithumb’s KRW market alongside an airdrop. In equities, Microsoft’s latest quarterly report drove a 15% jump in its stock and added $450 billion in market value in a single day, helping ignite gains in global chip shares. South Korean semiconductor names surged, while the Nasdaq rose 2.78% and Amazon climbed more than 12% in after-hours trading. The roundup also pointed to macro stress building under the surface, including worsening conflict involving Iran and Egypt, a sharp drop in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, yen volatility, and a nearly 3% rise in silver prices.