(Source: Finance News)
The South Korean KOSPI index surged by more than 6% at one point.
On July 22, the South Korean KOSPI index surged by more than 6% at one point. The Korean exchange launched the Sidecar mechanism and paused KOSPI programmatic buy orders. SK hynix (SKHY.US) rose by more than 9% at one point, while Samsung Electronics rose by more than 6%. The Nikkei 225 index rose by more than 2%; Kioxia rose by more than 12%; SoftBank Group and Tokyo Electron both rose by nearly 5%.
As of the time of publication, the South Korean KOSPI index is up more than 4%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 is up nearly 2%.
On the news front, Samsung Electronics, SK hynix (SKHY.US), and Micron Technology (MU.US) have launched full-scale competition to improve HBM4 yield. As the sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory, HBM4 will be used in AI accelerator chips such as Nvidia (NVDA.US)‘s Vera Rubin, to be released in the second half of the year, becoming a key support for companies’ performance in the second half.
Samsung has been the first to achieve large-scale production of HBM4. Industry estimates put its yield at close to 70%, driven by the ongoing benefits from its 1C-process DRAM (with yields stable at over 80% earlier in the year), which has significantly improved its yield management capabilities.
SK Hynix has not yet released precise yield figures, but industry assessments suggest it has entered a stable production range. To further solidify its over-50% share of the ultra–high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, it is currently in talks to introduce new manufacturing equipment to optimize the process and expand capacity.
Micron, whose capacity base is relatively weak, is accelerating yield ramp-up and large-scale equipment investment to simultaneously improve output capacity.
Yield (the proportion of qualified chips) directly determines delivery volumes and profit margins, making it the core focus of manufacturers’ efforts. Although general DRAM’s profit briefly outperformed earlier, its pricing upside has begun to slow (nearly doubled in the first quarter, 30%–50% in the second quarter, and 0%–20% in the third quarter). Meanwhile, HBM demand continues to expand, and the advantage of high gross margins will return to the forefront.
Industry insiders said: “Samsung was first to roll out HBM4 mass production, and the supply increase and profit growth brought by yield improvement were fully reflected in its Q2 earnings report. This trend will continue in the second half, and the yield competition among the three major memory companies will further intensify.”
A recent research report from Morgan Stanley believes that the shortage of AI data-center storage chip supply is still worsening. It expects this industry’s ‘supercycle’ to continue until 2028, and that storage-chip prices may rise another 25% in the next quarter.
In a research report dated July 21, JPMorgan (JPM.US) said that the net asset size of leverage ETFs based on Korean assets grew to $50 billion as of the end of June (about 73.755 trillion won). During this process, each market decline triggers forced deleveraging, causing Korea’s volatility index (VKOSPI) to expand to roughly 5 times the level of the U.S. volatility index (VIX). However, the report continues to maintain an ‘Overweight’ rating for Korean stocks, while keeping its 12-month target for the Korean Composite Index (KOSPI) at 12,500 points.