Samsung, SK Hynix Slide More Than 6% Before Open as US Chip Stocks Tumble

Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. both fell more than 6% in trading before the Korea Exchange opened on October 15. A sharp drop in US semiconductor shares, coupled with concerns about debt burdens at artificial intelligence companies and the risk of additional rate hikes, appeared to intensify selling pressure on South Korean chipmakers that had been buoyed by expectations for increased AI investment.

The two stocks each posted losses of more than 6% in Nextrade's NXT premarket session that day. The premarket allows stock trading from 8 a.m. to 8:50 a.m. before the Korea Exchange's regular session begins.

US semiconductor shares fell broadly overnight. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 4.3% on October 14. Sandisk and Micron Technology fell 5.97% and 3.88%, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 1.88%.

Concerns over the cost of AI investment were at the center of the selloff. AI cloud company CoreWeave plunged 15.46% as its rising debt burden from data-center expansion came into focus. Higher-than-expected US inflation added to the pressure. The September consumer price index rose 3.7% from a year earlier, above the market forecast of 3.6%.

The anxiety could also weigh on growth expectations for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The two companies supply high-bandwidth memory for AI servers, server DRAM and storage devices. If data-center investment is delayed, growth in memory orders and shipments could also slow. As stocks expected to benefit from expanding AI investment, they appeared to react sharply to questions about the sustainability of that spending.