Shares of South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix fell sharply on Wednesday as a broad selloff in artificial intelligence-related semiconductor stocks overshadowed strong investor demand for the company’s upcoming $28 billion Nasdaq listing, one of the largest equity offerings ever by a technology firm.
The stock closed 5.7% lower, while rival Samsung Electronics dropped 6.3%, weighing heavily on South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index, which finished down 5.4%.
The decline came as investors adopted a risk-off stance following heightened tensions between the United States and Iran and Washington’s decision to revoke a waiver permitting new Iranian oil sales. The cautious mood spread across Asian markets, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 ending 2.1% lower, while oil futures climbed more than 3%.
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 20 (June 8 – Sept 5, 2026).
Register for Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
The weakness followed a bruising session on Wall Street on Tuesday, where the Philadelphia Semiconductor Sector Index slumped 5% after recording its strongest quarterly performance on record.
The sharp reversal underpins how quickly investor sentiment toward artificial intelligence stocks has changed, even though SK Hynix remains one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom through its dominance in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips used in AI processors developed by customers including Nvidia and Alphabet’s Google.
Even after Wednesday’s decline, SK Hynix shares remain more than 200% higher this year.
Analysts See Long-Term Benefits Despite Market Volatility
Analysts said the company’s planned U.S. listing remains strategically attractive, even as investors reassess lofty valuations across AI infrastructure companies.
Charu Chanana, Chief Investment Strategist at Saxo, said the listing could strengthen the company’s standing among global investors.
“A US listing can broaden the investor base, improve liquidity and potentially narrow valuation gaps with US semiconductor peers,” she said.
However, Chanana cautioned that the timing presents challenges because investors are becoming more skeptical about the enormous sums being invested in AI infrastructure.
“It brings a large new block of AI-linked equity supply to market just as investors are questioning whether AI infrastructure stocks have run too far,” she added.
She said investors are now entering a more complex stage of the AI investment cycle.
“That is the key tension for investors. The very reason the sector is attractive today — tight supply and strong pricing — is also encouraging the next wave of capacity.”
This follows growing concerns that aggressive capacity expansion by chipmakers could eventually reduce supply shortages that have supported strong pricing across the industry.
ADR Offering Attracts Massive Institutional Demand
The market volatility has done little to weaken demand for SK Hynix’s American Depositary Receipt (ADR) offering. According to a source familiar with the transaction, the company’s $28 billion ADR sale has already been covered multiple times ahead of the close of bookbuilding on Wednesday, U.S. time.
Underwriters told investors that order books would close at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, while pricing guidance would be released after the close of South Korean markets on Thursday. Final allocations are expected later Thursday in the United States.
SK Hynix previously disclosed that it will determine the final ADR price on Thursday before beginning trading on the Nasdaq on July 10.
The source said U.S.-based institutional investors submitted exceptionally large orders, with initial bids beginning at around $200 million and some orders exceeding $1 billion.
Earlier this week, SK Hynix announced that Baillie Gifford, investment funds managed by Coatue Management and Situational Awareness Partners, had each separately indicated interest in purchasing ADRs worth up to a combined $7 billion.
The offering consists of 17.79 million newly issued shares and is expected to raise approximately 43 trillion won, or about $28.66 billion.
If completed as expected, the transaction will rank among the largest equity offerings in history, second only to SpaceX’s record $85.7 billion initial public offering last month. It would also surpass the landmark offerings by Saudi Aramco in 2019 and Alibaba Group in 2014.
Under the ADR structure, ten ADRs will represent one SK Hynix common share. A regulatory filing on Monday placed the reference price at 242,500 won per ADR, based on the company’s July 3 closing price in Seoul.
ADR Sale Strengthens South Korean Won
The massive fundraising exercise is already influencing South Korea’s foreign exchange market. According to Reuters, dollar-selling linked to the ADR transaction emerged in the dollar-won forwards market on Wednesday, helping lift the won by about 1% against the U.S. dollar. The currency strengthened beyond the psychologically important 1,500-per-dollar level and touched 1,498.1, its strongest level since May 29.
A source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the transaction, confirmed the flows were directly linked to the offering.
“There is forward selling related to SK Hynix American depository receipts (ADR) today,” the source told Reuters.
The news outlet previously reported that SK Hynix is expected to bring U.S. dollars into South Korea around July 15 and convert part of the proceeds into won to finance domestic capital expenditure.
Brent Donnelly, President of Spectra Markets, said the size of the offering makes it a significant event for currency markets.
“It is fresh USD equity (with) proceeds to fund won-denominated capex… that is a giant USD receivable with a KRW use of funds,” he said, adding that the impact extends beyond the mechanics of settlement and hedging.
“FX traders will argue about timing, hedging, swaps, settlement, etc., but the first-order sign is: this is a dollar-selling, won-buying event.”
Donnelly said even converting only part of the nearly $29 billion offering into won would represent a significant flow in the dollar-won market. South Korean Deputy Finance Minister Moon Ji-sung also said the government expects foreign exchange market conditions to improve during the second half of the year.
Speaking to Reuters, Moon said: “Supply-demand dynamics of the dollar-won market were expected to shift in the second half,” pointing to increased won demand generated by SK Hynix’s imminent U.S. share sale.
The strong institutional demand for the ADRs indicates investors remain eager to gain exposure to one of the world’s largest suppliers of AI memory chips, even as geopolitical tensions and concerns over AI-related valuations trigger renewed volatility across global technology markets.