As summer 2026 unfolds, a heated debate over whether South Korea’s semiconductor market has peaked is dividing market participants. Even as Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) post record-breaking results, their share prices have been swinging sharply\u2014because spot market price signals and technical analysis indicators are pointing in opposite directions.<\/p>\n
In the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) spot market, 36-gigabyte (GB) HBM3E chips are trading at approximately $2,100 per unit (about \u20a92.8 million). Given that long-term supply contract prices for the same product run around \u20a9500,000\u2013700,000 (approximately $370\u2013510), the spot premium amounts to 4\u20135 times the contract price.<\/p>\n
According to reporting by Seoul Economic Daily, if buyers expected memory prices to fall, there would be no reason to pay 4\u20135 times the contract price in the spot market. They would simply wait. The fact that spot buyers continue to pay elevated prices can be interpreted as a signal that chips are effectively unavailable anywhere near contract prices.<\/p>\n
Of course, the spot market represents only a tiny fraction of total memory trading volume, and thin markets can move excessively. However, in past memory cycles, when downturns began, spot prices tended to crack first and slide below contract prices. Such a wide premium is the opposite signal, analysts note.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s export data tells the same story from a different angle. In May, South Korea exported approximately 682 million DRAM chips, generating $11.4 billion (about \u20a915.4 trillion) in revenue. By July, export volume had fallen roughly 13% to 592 million units, but export value rose about 19% to $13.6 billion (about \u20a918.4 trillion). The average unit price surged roughly 37% in just two months, from $16.76 (about \u20a923,000) to $22.90 (about \u20a931,000).<\/p>\n
If this were a supply-driven peak, new supply would be flooding in, volumes would be rising, and unit prices would be flat or falling. Instead, manufacturers are shifting production lines to more expensive AI-grade memory, causing volumes to shrink while prices climb. The combination of falling volume and rising value is far from what a market returning to equilibrium looks like.<\/p>\n
The boom’s impact is unmistakable in SK Hynix’s results. Second-quarter revenue came in at \u20a979.3 trillion (approximately $58.7 billion), up 257% year-over-year. Operating profit rose even more steeply, reaching \u20a960.5 trillion (approximately $44.8 billion), a 557% increase from a year earlier. The operating margin hit 76%. The trajectory is still climbing: operating profit jumped 61% in a single quarter, from \u20a99.2 trillion a year ago to \u20a937.6 trillion in the first quarter and \u20a960.5 trillion in the second.<\/p>\n
Price pressure has not abated either. Market research firm TrendForce projects third-quarter standard DRAM contract prices will rise 13\u201318% from the second quarter, with NAND flash prices up 10\u201315%.<\/p>\n
Yet not every signal points upward. Han Gyu-beom, CEO of Hans Delta Partners and a stock investment specialist, says it is too early to declare the semiconductor offensive over\u2014but he notes that technical indicators are flashing warning signs.<\/p>\n
A 17-year finance veteran with a master’s degree in AI economics from Sogang University’s graduate school, Han began studying market-leading stocks in 2023, sparked by the secondary battery frenzy. In May, he published his findings on 60 South Korean and 138 U.S. market leaders in a book titled The Absolute Law of Leading Stock Cycles. According to his framework, leading stocks reach an “offensive end point” based on earnings growth momentum, share price trends, and weakening supply-demand dynamics.<\/p>\n
Han points out that Samsung Electronics has experienced a death cross, with its 4-week moving average falling below the 13-week line. “If the 4-week line falls below the 26-week line, investors should consider reducing positions,” he says. Currently, Samsung Electronics’ 4-week line is nearly touching the 26-week line. SK Hynix still has some distance from its 26-week line.<\/p>\n
He explains that in past semiconductor cycles, Samsung Electronics has tended to peak first, with SK Hynix forming the final top later. However, he stresses that a break below the 26-week line alone does not confirm the end of the offensive\u2014sector return rankings must be considered alongside it. As of late July, semiconductors still ranked first in sector returns.<\/p>\n
The “earnings delta”\u2014the rate of change in earnings growth\u2014is another key indicator. Han suggests Samsung Electronics’ quarterly earnings delta may have peaked in the second quarter of 2026. For SK Hynix, he sees the third quarter as the likely peak. A delta peak is less an immediate sell signal than a warning that growth acceleration is slowing.<\/p>\n
“Looking at the earnings delta, which represents the change in annual growth rates, 2026 is the most explosive year,” he says. “Based on quarterly data, the final peak could form in the first or second quarter of 2027.”<\/p>\n
He also presents statistical evidence from leading stock cycles. Applying Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, the median offensive duration for South Korean market leaders was approximately 10 months, with a mean of 49.5 weeks. One year after an offensive began, the survival rate was only about 30%. Ninety-five percent of the South Korean sample completed their offensives within two years. For U.S. market leaders, the average was about 67 weeks, with 95% of the sample ending their offensives within two and a half years.<\/p>\n
If the semiconductor offensive is dated to around September 2025, then as of August 2026 it is in its 11th month\u2014meaning the survival probability has already dropped below half. That said, given the scale of this year’s earnings growth, it would be statistically unusual to conclude that June 2026 was the final peak, he explains.<\/p>\n
SK Hynix also faces company-specific risks. Samsung Electronics is ramping up shipments of the competing HBM4 product. According to Counterpoint Research’s second-quarter survey, SK Hynix’s HBM revenue share fell from 58% to 50%, while Samsung Electronics’ share rose from 21% to 33%. Even if memory prices remain elevated, a stronger second supplier could erode SK Hynix’s boom-time share.<\/p>\n
Han lays out a step-by-step selling sequence for individual investors. The earnings delta turning negative is the first warning; the 4-week line crossing below the 13-week line is the second. If the 4-week line falls below the 26-week line, investors should consider reducing positions, and if sector return rankings also deteriorate, remaining holdings can be liquidated. “Rather than buying or selling everything at once, it is better to scale in and scale out in tranches,” he advises. “Excessive leveraged investing should be avoided.”<\/p>\n
Memory cycles typically end in oversupply. Prices like today’s inevitably trigger a new wave of capital expenditure across the industry. If AI spending slows, the data could reverse quickly. But a peak must eventually show up somewhere in the numbers\u2014a narrowing spot premium, flat unit prices, recovering export volumes. None of those signals have appeared yet, which is why the argument that calling a peak is premature remains compelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As summer 2026 unfolds, a heated debate over whether South Korea’s semiconductor market has peaked is dividing market…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[11446,73263,73264,20421,2295,276,241,275,23385],"class_list":["post-144443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sk-hynix","tag-counterpoint-research","tag-han-gyu-beom","tag-hans-delta-partners","tag-hbm3e","tag-nvidia","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk","tag-sk-hynix","tag-trendforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}