Leveraged ETF Distortion Aside, SK Hynix ADR News Fuels 4% KOSPI Rally

SK Hynix's Nasdaq ADR was priced at $149, roughly a 3.1% premium over Thursday's Korean-market closing price, marking what is described as the largest-ever U.S. IPO by a foreign company. Institutional demand was oversubscribed roughly sevenfold, with more than 500 institutions participating and the top 25 accounts alone taking 67% of allocated shares. The underlying stock jumped about 3% in after-hours trading in Korea on the news and added another 1-2% in Friday's regular session to trade around 2.22 million won.

ADR and domestic common shares cannot be converted into one another, and each ADR represents one-tenth of a domestic common share. Unlike Korea, U.S. markets set a separate opening price on listing day, with trading likely to begin around noon New York time, roughly 1 a.m. Korean time. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is reportedly set to ring the opening bell in person, and proceeds are expected to fund fab investment in Gwangju and South Jeolla, with related currency conversion seen as a contributing factor to the won's recent stability.

In biotech, Peptron and HLB both remained locked at limit-down for a second straight day. Peptron, whose long-acting peptide-based drug delivery platform had fueled hopes of an obesity-drug tie-up, tumbled after its CEO indicated at an industry event that the compound under joint research with Eli Lilly was not the widely anticipated tirzepatide. HLB hit limit-down after receiving its third Complete Response Letter from the U.S. FDA for liver cancer drug rivoceranib.

Contagion to other biotech names was limited, however. Alteogen actually gained 6-9%, and Protina surged by double digits intraday on news of a follow-on licensing deal with Samsung Biologics for AI-driven antibody drug candidate discovery. With the KOSDAQ having fallen into the low-700s, some of the buying was attributed to bargain-hunting at perceived lows. Hosts advised investors to size biotech positions conservatively given the difficulty of predicting individual pipeline outcomes compared with global pharma majors.

Separately, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong drew a warm public reaction after reportedly canceling his schedule to personally pay respects, alone, at the funeral of a cleaning staff member who had worked more than 20 years at the Seocho office. Hosts noted the story has no bearing on the stock price but reflects a broader shift in how Korea's conglomerates carry themselves.

Meta announced plans to build a 1-gigawatt data center in Alberta, Canada, expandable to 1.8 gigawatts, and said it would roughly double its computing capacity to 14 gigawatts by next year — moves that helped dispel earlier concerns about scaled-back AI investment sparked by reports it was exploring leasing out spare compute.

Meta also said it will begin producing its in-house AI chip, codenamed Iris, co-designed with Broadcom, starting in September, and disclosed long-term supply agreements covering memory, storage and optical fiber with Samsung Electronics, SanDisk and Sumitomo Electric, respectively. It also unveiled its lower-cost model, Muse Spark 1.1, priced at roughly 25% of top-tier competitors' rates as part of an aggressive pricing push.

Individual chip stocks rallied broadly. Lam Research rose about 6%, Micron about 4.5%, AMD about 5.7%, Marvell about 5%, SanDisk about 7.6%, and Western Digital about 5%. Tesla gained more than 3%.

SK Hynix priced its American depositary receipts at $149 apiece, with each ADR representing one-tenth of a common share — about 3.1% above the prior close. The offering is expected to be the largest-ever U.S. listing by a foreign company, with demand reported at roughly seven times the offered size.

PepsiCo shares fell about 3% even after earnings topped estimates on lower interest expense, as investors focused elsewhere.