SK Hynix Seoul Shares Drop 10% After $26.5B Nasdaq Debut

SK Hynix’s Seoul-listed stock dropped more than 10% on Monday following the company’s American depositary receipts’ strong debut on Nasdaq on Friday. The Nasdaq sale priced 177.9 million ADRs at $149 each, raising roughly $26.5 billion.

The ADRs opened at $170, reached as high as a 19% intraday gain and closed at $168.01, a 12.8% first-day rise. The ADRs had not yet begun regular U.S. trading when Seoul shares fell.

In Seoul, the share price slipped from Friday’s close of 2.18 million won to an intraday low near 1.94 million won, a decline of about 11%, before recovering some ground. The broader KOSPI index fell as much as 2.8% in morning trade.

Analysts and traders attributed the Korean sell-off to profit-taking, broader market weakness and softer-than-expected near-term shipments of HBM4 memory. SK Hynix has higher exposure to HBM, a high-bandwidth memory used in AI systems, which may limit its gains from rising conventional DRAM prices.

Brokerage coverage remains largely positive. Of 37 analysts covering the stock, 35 recommend buy, one recommends hold and one recommends sell. The average price target for the Korean shares is about 3.21 million won.

HSBC raised its Korean-share target to 4.0 million won from 2.9 million won and projected SK Hynix’s price-to-book multiple could increase from about 2.8 times to 3.4 times.

Han Donghee of SK Securities described Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as ‘the cheapest stocks in the age of artificial intelligence’, saying memory valuations may be reassessed as investors weigh DRAM and HBM demand for AI infrastructure.

Traders pointed out that ADRs and Seoul-listed shares can trade at different premiums as investors adjust for currency moves, market hours and short-term demand. Friday’s ADR rally followed by Monday’s decline in Seoul shows those gaps can open and close over days.