JPMorgan Chase: SK Hynix Stock Price Drop Concerns Overblown, Mid-Term Market Sentiment Expected to Improve

BlockBeats News, August 9th. JPMorgan Chase believes that the market's concern over the decline in SK Hynix's stock price is excessive. With the early announcement of the shareholder return plan and the company maintaining HBM competitiveness, the mid-term market sentiment is expected to improve. Key future catalysts include: the shareholder return plan is expected to be formally announced by the end of September 2026, and HBM contract price updates are also expected to be confirmed around the same period.

SK Hynix has brought forward the announcement time of the shareholder return plan from "within the year" to the end of the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase expects that the company's accumulated free cash flow in the next 3 years will exceed 80 trillion Korean won, providing sufficient shareholder return capabilities; considering gains such as the sale of Kioxia shares, its shareholder return scale may exceed that of other global memory chip companies. The company also plans to invest around 54 trillion Korean won in infrastructure, including investing 35.2 trillion Korean won to build the Icheon Y2 DRAM fab and investing 19.1 trillion Korean won to build the Cheongju M17 NAND fab.

In response to reports that SK Hynix's HBM4 is priced 50% lower than its competitors, JPMorgan Chase believes that such statements are not accurate, and the market's concerns are excessive. It is expected that SK Hynix's 2026 HBM prices will increase by less than 40% year-on-year. The reasons include the company's need to prioritize higher-margin products such as DDR5, LPDDR5, and long-term NAND supply contracts, as well as manage its relationship with its largest customer, NVIDIA, from a multi-year cooperation and long-term procurement perspective. As HBM is usually repriced annually, after securing long-term contract orders for 3 to 5 years, the importance of short-term pricing will also decrease.