▲ SK Hynix
SK Hynix turned lower during trading today (July 29), plunging by 9 to 10 percent.
As of 11:05 a.m. today on the main bourse, SK Hynix was trading at 1,414,000 won, down 8.77 percent from the previous session.
The downward slide later widened to the 9 to 10 percent range.
Opening up 1.10 percent at 1,567,000 won, SK Hynix surged as much as 4.45 percent to 1,619,000 won immediately after the market opened, but soon gave up its gains and turned downward.
At around 11:01 a.m., it plummeted as much as 10.19 percent to 1,392,000 won.
At the same time, Samsung Electronics was also trading down 4.77 percent from the previous session at 209,500 won.
Opening up 2.95 percent at 226,500 won and rising to 234,000 won for a relatively solid trend, Samsung Electronics soon turned weak as SK Hynix plummeted.
While bargain hunting flowed in during the early session following yesterday's 13 to 14 percent plunge, disappointment over SK Hynix's earnings falling short of market expectations released today, coupled with a lack of specific details regarding shareholder returns during the related conference call, appeared to trigger panic selling.
SK Hynix's preliminary consolidated operating profit for the second quarter of this year was tallied at 60.5426 trillion won, up 557.2 percent from the same period last year.
The operating profit margin reached a whopping 76 percent.
However, this operating profit is about 4.7 percent lower than the market consensus of 63.5526 trillion won compiled by Yonhap Infomax.
Revenue rose 256.8 percent year-on-year to 79.3187 trillion won, and net income surged 1,242.5 percent to 93.9226 trillion won.
Addressing concerns over cuts to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investment that served as the pretext for the semiconductor stock correction during the conference call, SK Hynix stated, "As AI competition and service expansion among cloud service providers (CSPs) continue, we expect AI infrastructure investment to remain robust beyond next year."
The company also projected that in the second half of the year, "Earnings improvements will be further reinforced as the effect of rising average selling prices (ASPs) from product mix enhancements takes hold together."
Regarding the progress of next year's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) price negotiations, it explained, "It is difficult to disclose specific prices and details due to contracts," adding, "We are discussing supply volumes and prices with major customers, and discussions are proceeding smoothly based on solid customer demand."
Regarding shareholder returns, the company stated that it is reviewing various methods for additional shareholder returns.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. New York stock market overnight, semiconductor stocks such as Micron (-8.85%), AMD (-8.15%), and Western Digital (-6.91%) plunged significantly under the influence of the previous day's rout in the South Korean stock market, causing the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index to plummet by 4.49 percent.
As of this time on the main bourse, foreign investors and institutional investors are net buyers of 185.4 billion won and 1.1828 trillion won, respectively.
Individual investors are the sole net sellers, offloading 1.3610 trillion won.
In the Kospi electrical and electronic sector, which includes Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, foreign and institutional investors are also in a buying advantage with 94.9 billion won and 812.3 billion won, while individual investors are in a selling advantage with 892.1 billion won.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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