SK Hynix's $26.5 Billion Debut Caps a Choppy Week That Ended in the Green

A Week That Opened With an Iran Shock and Closed With a Record IPO

SK Hynix's Nasdaq Debut Is the Largest Foreign IPO in U.S. History

• SK Hynix (SKHY) priced its American depositary shares at $149, opened around $170, and finished the day roughly ▲ 13% higher — raising $26.5 billion across 177.9 million ADS and valuing the company near $1.03 trillion. It is the largest-ever U.S. stock listing by a foreign company, surpassing Alibaba's 2014 record.
• SK Hynix is the world's largest supplier of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that power Nvidia and AMD's AI accelerators, controlling an estimated 58–60% of the HBM market. The company's chairman told CNBC that AI-driven "demand is enormous," and separately said memory-chip shortages are likely to persist beyond 2030. Fiscal 2025 revenue reached roughly $64.6 billion, up 47% year-over-year, with operating profit nearly doubling to $31.3 billion — underscoring why investors were willing to pay a premium for direct U.S.-listed exposure.
• The listing was widely framed as a sentiment test for the AI-memory trade after a rough stretch: Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix's Seoul-listed shares had all fallen more than 20% from recent highs earlier this summer. Micron shares slipped Friday as some investors rotated into the newly tradable SK Hynix stock instead.
• The debut lands one day after Micron raised its total U.S. manufacturing investment plan to over $250 billion through 2035 and poured first concrete at its new New York DRAM fab — a reminder that the memory-chip buildout race now has at least three serious players competing for AI infrastructure dollars.

Chips Stayed the Story All Week — Meta Made It a Two-Horse Race

• Meta Platforms (META) jumped ▲ 5.95% Friday and logged its best week since early 2024, up roughly 15%, after unveiling an AI image tool ("Muse Image"), committing $10 billion to a new AI data center in Canada, and continuing to build out a compute-leasing business for outside customers.
• A record number of tech insiders are buying their own stock: 28 executives across the companies in the Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) have purchased shares on the open market over the past six months — the highest count on record and double the pace from earlier this year — as summer weakness in chip names created what some see as a buying opportunity.
• Basic materials, telecom, and technology led Friday's sector tape, while CrowdStrike (CRWD) fell ▼ 5.67% on profit-taking following its recent 4-for-1 stock split, and Moderna (MRNA) tumbled ▼ 10.83% after an EU vaccine framework deal for up to 24 million mRESVIA doses came with no firm purchase minimum.
• Oil eased into the weekend — WTI crude near $72.14 and Brent near $76.39 — as reports of Qatar- and Pakistan-mediated talks to revive the Iran-U.S. ceasefire cooled the risk premium that had driven Brent above $80 mid-week.

Where the Money Actually Went Friday

• EquipmentShare (EQPT) surged ▲ 17% after raising its 2026 financial outlook on strong customer demand and authorizing a $500 million share buyback.
• WD-40 Company (WDFC) gained ▲ 11% after Q3 sales jumped 24% year-over-year, beating estimates and coming with an expanded buyback of its own.
• Meta Platforms (META) ▲ 5.95% led S&P 500 gainers, followed by CarMax (KMX) ▲ 4.86%, Weyerhaeuser (WY) ▲ 4.22%, and Nvidia (NVDA) ▲ 4.03%.
• Delta Air Lines (DAL) rose ▲ 2.21% to $89.00 after posting record adjusted revenue of $17.67 billion and reinstating full-year EPS guidance of $6.50–$7.50, even as fuel costs jumped 77% year-over-year to $4.4 billion for the quarter.

Rate-Hike Odds Shift as Geopolitics Rattles the Middle of the Week

• The week's defining shock came Wednesday, when President Trump said the Iran ceasefire was "over" after overnight military exchanges near the Strait of Hormuz, sending the Dow down 576.76 points (▼1.1%) to 52,348.39 and Brent crude up 5.2% to $78.02 a barrel. Trump later clarified the fighting did not mean a return to full-scale war, and markets stabilized.
• That volatility shifted rate expectations: traders are now pricing potential Fed rate increases in September or October rather than December, as the market weighs energy-driven inflation risk against still-solid growth data.
• Initial jobless claims fell to a six-week low of 215,000 Thursday, below the 223,000 consensus, while 10-year Treasury TIPS yields pushed to multi-decade highs — a combination analysts read as confidence in growth without runaway inflation. The 10-year Treasury yield closed near 4.56%.
• Gold slipped for a second straight session, down about 0.6% to roughly $4,112–4,115 an ounce, while silver fell 1.67% to $59.74 — both pulling back as the immediate Iran risk premium faded into the weekend.

What to Watch the Week of July 13

• Q2 earnings season kicks off. JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup report Tuesday, July 14 before the bell, followed by Bank of America and Morgan Stanley on Wednesday, July 15, and Goldman Sachs on Thursday, July 16. Analysts expect roughly 12.5% EPS growth and 8.1% revenue growth across the financial sector — watch net interest margin, credit quality, and commercial real estate exposure.
• June CPI (Tuesday, July 14, 7:30 AM CT). The first major inflation read since this week's Iran-driven oil spike — a hot print could accelerate the September rate-hike odds markets are already pricing in.
• SK Hynix (SKHY) begins regular trading July 13 once its when-issued period ends — the first full week of price discovery for the largest foreign listing in U.S. history.
• Iran diplomacy remains the wildcard. Qatar- and Pakistan-mediated talks to revive the ceasefire could ease oil's risk premium further — or another breakdown could reignite the volatility that hit the Dow mid-week.
• Memory-chip trade in focus. With Micron's $250 billion U.S. investment plan and SK Hynix's public debut both landing this week, expect continued rotation between AI-memory names as investors size up who benefits most from persistent chip shortages.