SK Hynix Lands on the NASDAQ: How to Trade Nvidia’s Supplier
$28 billion. That’s what SK Hynix is aiming for by listing its shares on the NASDAQ. But two misconceptions surround the deal: this is not a first IPO, and the stock was never out of reach for Europeans.
Here’s what the US listing means for traders looking to take a position in the stock.
SK Hynix targets $28 billion on the NASDAQ
SK Hynix has filed with the SEC to list 177.9 million ADRs on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker SKHY. At the July 3 reference price of around $158.14 per ADR, the deal is worth close to $28 billion.
According to the financial press, it could become the largest ADR listing ever, ahead of Alibaba’s $21.8 billion in 2014. [1]
Three cornerstone investors, Baillie Gifford, Coatue, and Situational Awareness, have said they want to buy up to $7 billion of ADRs.
One subtlety: SK Hynix is not going public the way SpaceX is. The stock has traded in Seoul since 1996. The company is simply opening a second listing in the United States.
The listing takes the form of ADRs (American Depositary Receipts), dollar-denominated certificates that represent the share. Here, one ADR equals one tenth of an SK Hynix share. A depositary bank holds the shares in Seoul and issues the certificates.
For a trader, that means buying the stock in dollars during US market hours, without touching the Korean market.
That still leaves the question of why the stock has already drawn $7 billion in commitments. SK Hynix is the world’s number one in HBM memory, the high-bandwidth chips Nvidia stacks into its AI accelerators. In June, the two companies announced a technology partnership.
What the NASDAQ listing changes for European traders
In practice, SKHY becomes a NASDAQ-listed stock, in dollars, tradable through most brokers that give access to this market.
The stock was never closed to Europeans, though. International brokers like Interactive Brokers already gave access to the Seoul stock exchange, and in late June IBKR expanded its Korean equity access with Nextrade [2] . A European retail investor can already buy the share in Seoul, in won. The stock also exists as a GDR in Luxembourg and through ETFs on Korea.
The NASDAQ listing changes the game, though: it makes the stock far easier to trade for both American and European traders.
How to trade SK Hynix
Once SKHY is listed on the NASDAQ, buying and selling the stock will work like any other US share. Here are examples of brokers available in Europe.
| Broker | Access to SK Hynix | Indicative fees |
|---|---|---|
| Interactive Brokers | The Seoul-listed share directly (KRX and Nextrade) today, and SKHY on the NASDAQ once listed | Korea: 0.06% (min. 4,000 KRW) · NASDAQ: $0.005/share (min. $1) |
| DEGIRO | SKHY on the NASDAQ once listed | €1 per order, plus the custody fees specific to ADRs |
| Saxo | SKHY on the NASDAQ once listed | 0.08% (min. $1) + administration fees |
All three brokers give access to the NASDAQ. SKHY will be tradable there as soon as it is listed and referenced, with a delay that varies from one broker to another after the debut.
Interactive Brokers remains the most complete option: it’s the only one on the list where you can trade the Korean share right now, before the US listing.
Another way to buy SK Hynix: ETFs that track the Korean index. It’s the simplest way to get exposure to this market from Europe, during normal hours. The index has jumped nearly 80% since January, driven by AI memory.
In an MSCI Korea tracker, Samsung and SK Hynix together weigh close to 45%, of which around 18% is SK Hynix alone. You’re buying exposure to the Korean market, but also, to a large extent, to these two stocks, given their weight in the index.
The stock arrives on the NASDAQ after gaining more than 200% since January 1. Fear of missing out is a poor advisor, and remember that nothing forces you to buy on the first day of trading.
SK Hynix also remains a pure memory play, a market the prospectus filed with the SEC describes as cyclical, subject to “recurring periods of oversupply”. And liquidity is not a given: the document warns that “an active trading market for the ADSs may not develop”, since they have no trading history.
SK Hynix on the NASDAQ: key takeaways
The listing makes the stock easier to buy without changing anything about the company. Under the ticker SKHY, SK Hynix will trade like a US stock, in dollars and during New York trading hours, but it remains the same South Korean company: same memory business, same cycle, and a share price run that is already off the charts.
That leaves the choice of broker, which can make a real difference in fees and market access. Fees and market access vary widely from one platform to the next, so it’s worth checking what your broker charges on US stocks before the debut.
Audrey holds a Diploma in Accounting and Financial Studies (DECF) and has over 15 years of professional experience in the banking and accounting sectors.
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