SKHX Slides to $1,304 as a Sub-1,500 Won Compounds the Memory Selloff

Why the Dollar Tape Is Deeper Than Seoul's

Start with the divergence. SK Hynix common closed down 9.92% at ₩2.07 million in Seoul on June 5. The SKHX perp prints $1,304 — down 14.93% over 20 hours, a materially deeper cut than the cash market took. That gap is not noise; it's foreign exchange.

SKHX tracks one KRW-denominated share converted to USD, and on June 5 the won broke below 1,500 per dollar to roughly 1,545 — its weakest level since 2009. A dollar holder of SKHX therefore eats two hits in the same print: the equity drop in Seoul and the currency drop on top of it. Run the conversion and the picture is clean — ₩2,070,000 at ~1,545 is about $1,339 as a cash-close-times-FX mark. The perp is sitting at or just under that, near $1,304, with the Korean cash market closed for the night. That's Hyperliquid traders pricing a second red session into Seoul's next open rather than waiting for it.

The Broadcom Domino

The trigger was never a Korea story at the source. After its June 3 close, Broadcom guided fiscal Q3 AI-chip revenue to roughly $16 billion against a ~$17.2 billion consensus — about 7% light — and that single in-line-not-blowout print was enough to break the reflexive bid under the entire memory complex.

Korea opened straight into it. The KOSPI tripped a sell-side circuit breaker after KOSPI 200 futures fell 5%, and the index closed down 5.54% at 8,160.59 after trading more than 6% lower intraday. Samsung and SK Hynix, now more than half the index weight, drove the bulk of the decline. Underneath the index move is a positioning unwind: foreign investors have been the marginal seller for weeks, net selling on the order of $22 billion of Korean equities since early May, with roughly $12 billion of that concentrated in SK Hynix alone.

The Bull Case Still on File

None of this touched the fundamentals. A day before the flush, Reuters reported SK Hynix told investors its US listing plan won "tremendously positive" feedback, with a confidential ADR filing that a source in March pegged as high as $14 billion. On the same call the company said HBM pricing should stay favorable into next year and that demand will likely exceed supply — the opposite of a demand scare.

The stock is still up roughly 250% year-to-date and crossed a $1 trillion market cap last week. Read together, June 5 looks like a positioning-plus-FX flush in the most crowded trade on the KOSPI, not a fundamental break. The asymmetry for SKHX longs is specific: even if the chip story holds, a won that keeps sliding through 1,500 keeps the dollar tape heavier than the Seoul tape — so the FX leg, not the equity leg, is the thing to size around here.