A newspaper report that SK hynix is weighing a special dividend of about 16 trillion won, or roughly $12.1 billion, sent the chipmaker’s shares sharply higher in Seoul on Monday morning. Most of the gain disappeared after the company said nothing had been decided.
What was reported
South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo said the payout would be funded by profits from the sale of SK hynix’s stake in Japanese memory maker Kioxia, a gain estimated at around 20 trillion won. The dividend would therefore amount to roughly four-fifths of that windfall. The paper said the plan could be unveiled alongside third-quarter results on Wednesday.
In a regulatory filing, SK hynix said it was reviewing various ways to return value to shareholders but had confirmed nothing. Any additional measures, it said, would be announced with the earnings after a board resolution. Shares that had climbed about 1.9% early in the session gave back most of the increase.
A company already returning cash
The report follows SK hynix’s completion of a 40 trillion won share buyback and cancellation on 21 October, about a month ahead of schedule. The company has also reportedly shelved plans for a US listing of its Solidigm flash-storage subsidiary, a decision that came after a sharp correction in American and South Korean chip stocks.
A market short of buffers
Seoul’s benchmark KOSPI closed 1.45% lower at 5,469.59 on Monday and now sits more than 35% below its June peak. On 13 October the index plunged 5.46% in a single session as foreign investors sold a net 4.51 trillion won of shares.
Analysts linked that rout partly to the end of large buyback programmes at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, which had absorbed much of the selling in earlier months. One Daishin Securities analyst said the market had lost the cushion those buybacks provided and was already pricing in an earnings decline of 35% to 51%.
The pain is not confined to Seoul. According to figures compiled by an Australian market-news site, memory and storage stocks have shed about $1.3 trillion from their 2026 highs. SK hynix’s US-listed shares closed on Friday at $137.02, about 8% below the price at its July listing.
An earnings test for the AI trade
Investors are asking whether the vast sums flowing into artificial-intelligence hardware will turn into durable profits. This week’s results will offer an early answer. SK hynix reports on Wednesday and Samsung Electronics on Thursday.
Strategists say strong memory earnings could help steady a market unsettled by doubts over AI spending. Reports that both companies plan to begin mass production of next-generation HBM4 memory for Nvidia in the second quarter of next year add to the focus.
Not everyone is bearish. Goldman Sachs cut its 12-month KOSPI target to 9,000 from 12,000 on Sunday, but even the lower figure implies more than 60% upside from current levels. The bank argued that the market is pricing in an overly negative outlook.
What to watch on Wednesday and Thursday
Three questions stand out. The first is whether SK hynix confirms a special dividend, and how large it is. The second is what both companies say about demand for high-bandwidth memory. The third is how Samsung’s numbers compare. A confirmed payout would reward shareholders, but it would not on its own settle the debate over how long the AI hardware boom can support today’s valuations.
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