SK Hynix Stock Is Soaring—In South Korea. Here's How You Can Invest In It in the U.S.

The South Korea-based chipmaker recently joined the $1 trillion club.
Credit: Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP

Key Takeaways

Korea- and chip-themed funds with big helpings of SK Hynix are shooting the lights out so far this year. Shares of the memory chip giant have risen more than 230% so far this year amid frenzied buying of AI-related memory stocks.

Call it a K-pop.

South Korea-based memory chipmaker SK Hynix has risen more than 230% so far this year, helping the company into the $1 trillion market-capitalization club amid a frenzy over semiconductor stocks. Shares of SK Hynix aren't traded on a major U.S. exchange, but you can get them through exchange-traded funds—and several that hold big slugs of the shares have put up big numbers this year. (The stock rose more than 9% in South Korean trading today; read Investopedia's coverage of Wednesday's action here.)

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU

Investors seeking access to international stocks often tap ETFs that tend to be easier to buy and trade.

ETFs whose holdings are at least 20% in shares of SK Hynix tend to be South Korea-themed, international, or actively managed with a mandate to invest in chip companies. Some have rallied so hard that they've doubled—or nearly doubled—this year. At least nine U.S.-listed ETFs hold SK Hynix and are up 60% or more year-to-date, according to recent TradingView data.

BlackRock's iShares MSCI South Korea's (EWY) top holding is SK Hynix, accounting for almost 30% of the fund's $23.9 billion in assets. It's up more than 103% so far this year, and just hit its all-time high today. The fund holds smaller helpings of 80-odd other stocks and a 20%-plus position in Samsung Electronics.

There's also Franklin FTSE South Korea (FLKR), a relatively small fund that has almost doubled this year and has a similarly big helping of SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics—which can be expected of South Korean-themed funds that are market-cap weighted, meaning companies' influence in a fund is affected by their relative market values.

Roundhill Memory (DRAM), unlike the other two, is an actively-managed fund that aims to hold a basket of memory chip companies from the U.S. and elsewhere. SK Hynix makes up 27% of the fund's $11.6 billion in assets under management. It's a bit more concentrated than the other two funds, holding just over a dozen stocks; its other big holdings include Micron Technology (MU) and Samsung Electronics. It's up 118% so far this year.

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