SK Hynix Just Had Its Best Quarter Ever: The Stock Is Down 53% From Peak

SK hynix Inc. (NASDAQ: SKHY ) earned more in three months than it did in all of 2025.

Its shares are on track for their worst month since 2002.

Both statements describe the same company in the aftermath of the second-quarter 2026 earnings report.

The Icheon-based memory maker reported quarterly revenue of 79.32 trillion won ($54.9 billion) and operating profit of 60.54 trillion won ($41.9 billion) on Wednesday, both records.

Operating margin reached a gigantic 76%.

That single quarter’s operating profit exceeded the 47.21 trillion won ($32.7 billion) SK Hynix earned across the whole of 2025.

It also topped Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ), as the world’s second most valuable company booked roughly $36 billion of operating income in its most recently reported quarter.

For the market, it was still a miss.

Wall Street analyst consensus called for 84 trillion won of revenue and 64 trillion won of operating profit.

The company came in roughly 5.4% light on the profit line.

Seoul-listed shares closed 9.61% lower at 1,401,000 won after falling as much as 15% intraday.

For the week, they are down 20.4%, the worst week since 2011.

For the month, they have tumbled 47%, the worst month since June 2002.

From its 52-week high of 2,987,000 won, the stock has lost 53%.

The Nasdaq-listed shares are down, trading 13% below the IPO offer price of $149 and 25% below that first-day close.

The company has now shed more than $500 billion in value since June.

When adding peer Samsung Electronics Co.

Ltd. (OTC: SSNLF ), the combined market-cap loss exceeds $1 trillion.

The iShares South Korea ETF (NYSE: EWY ) has plunged 25% month-to-date, on pace for its worst month since October 2008.

A bloodbath.

What Actually Went Wrong The headline net profit figure is more misleading than the miss.

Net profit rose 1,242.5% to 93.92 trillion won ($65.0 billion), but 63.3 trillion won ($43.8 billion) of that came from gains on investment assets, largely the completed disposal of SK Hynix’s stake in Kioxia Holdings Corp.

Strip out the one-time gain and the bottom-line beat disappears.

Underneath, the operating business is running hot.

DRAM average selling prices rose about 30% sequentially and NAND prices climbed in the mid-50% range.

Enterprise SSD revenue doubled quarter on quarter.

Cash and equivalents reached 88 trillion won ($60.9 billion), lifting the net cash position to 69.4 trillion won ($48.0 billion).

The company raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to the high-40 trillion-won range, roughly $33 billion, compared with 30.2 trillion won ($20.9 billion) spent in 2025.

Read Also: QUICK SPARK: Micron, SK Hynix And Memory Stocks Wipe Out More Than $2 Trillion Since June Highs Analysts Highlight Market Overreaction Sanjeev Rana, head of research at CLSA Securities Korea, told Bloomberg the shortfall came down to a “weak product mix” in the June quarter rather than any deterioration in demand, and characterized it as a “timing issue” as HBM4 shipments accelerate through the second half.

HBM4 is the sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory that goes into Nvidia Corp.’s (NASDAQ: NVDA ) newest AI accelerators.

Slower shipments pushed revenue recognition out of the quarter.

Management said delays in shipments of certain advanced products limited pricing gains in the core DRAM business.

Rana expects roughly another 30% sequential increase in profits in the third quarter, with 2027 shaping up as a year of “severe memory shortage.” The stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 4, a level Rana highlighted as an opportunity.

He expects global hyperscaler investment to grow more than 30% next year. “We remain confident about our earnings forecast for the company,” he said.

Peter Kim, Global Investment strategist at KB Financial Group, told Bloomberg the relevant variables now are fund flows, retail sentiment and the pace at which two-times single-stock leveraged products are liquidated. “Markets are falling at the moment with the deleveraging of the retail ETFs,” he said.

He noted the leveraged complex spans not just Korean single stocks but the entire DRAM trade across the United States, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, which sharpened both the greed and the fear phases.