SK Hynix rises as brokerages launch coverage with bullish ratings

By Kanishka Ajmera

Aug 4 (Reuters) - Recently listed U.S. shares of SK Hynix roseate 5% aft six brokerages started sum of the South Korean chipmaker ‌with bullish ratings, citing its dominance successful the booming AI representation ‌market and entree to a broader planetary capitalist base.

The American Depositary Receipts of SK Hynix, whose ​primary listing is successful Seoul, were past up astatine $150.08 connected Tuesday. However, they are trading 16% beneath their July 10 listing terms owed to a caller pullback successful semiconductor stocks.

The institution had priced its ADRs astatine $149 for the secondary listing and ‌raised astir $26.5 billion, aided by ⁠strong capitalist involvement successful AI-focused high-bandwidth representation (HBM) chips.

Massive AI infrastructure spending has fueled request for HBM chips, driving up prices ⁠and making representation manufacturers cardinal beneficiaries of the artificial quality boom.

At slightest six brokerages, including BofA Global Research, started sum connected SK Hynix with a "buy"-equivalent rating. Rosenblatt Securities ​set the ​highest terms people connected the banal astatine $320.

Bank ​of America was the underwriter ‌for SK Hynix's U.S. secondary offering, on with Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

"We judge the U.S. listing provides an accidental for SKHY shares to re-rate person to its U.S.-based rival (Micron), which should compound with a much structural re-rating of shares driven by longer-term visibility and beardown tie-in to AI and information halfway ‌end markets," said analysts astatine William Blair.

However, ​the affirmative reception was successful opposition to the ​company's latest net report, which came ​a fewer days aft the U.S. listing.

SK Hynix posted a ‌record quarterly nett but fell abbreviated ​of analysts' forecasts owed ​to delays successful shipments of precocious representation products, raising concerns astir the gait of AI-related spending.

BofA said SK Hynix remains undervalued, citing beardown orders ​from U.S. exertion companies, ‌leadership successful high-end representation chips and expectations for "super-cycle" net arsenic AI ​infrastructure spending continues to ramp up.

(Reporting by Rashika Singh and Kanishka ​Ajmera successful Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)