SK Hynix’s 632% operating profit surge and $45 billion shareholder pledge sent SKHY up 8%, pulling Micron up 4% and SanDisk up 5% premarket.
Micron fell 11%, SanDisk 23%, and Western Digital 15% over the prior month, a period when Bloomberg noted strong earnings had not been raising memory stocks.
SK Hynix set records on revenue and operating profit but net profit of 40 trillion won missed the 60 trillion won analyst consensus.
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SK Hynix (NASDAQ:SKHY) reported third-quarter results overnight in Korea on October 28, 2026. Its US-listed shares jumped 8% in premarket trading to $156.78, and AFP reported the Korea-listed shares gained 11% on the day. Two things drove the move. AFP reported a 632% jump in operating profit, and the company announced a new shareholder return plan that AFP converted to $45 billion.
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The other memory stocks followed before the open. Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) rose about 4%, SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) about 5%, and Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) less than 2%.
What SK Hynix Actually Reported
SK hynix said operating profit for July through September reached 83.33 trillion won, which AFP converted to $62.8 billion. SK hynix reported sales of 104.61 trillion won. Revenue and operating profit both set records.
Net profit is where the quarter falls short. SK Hynix said net profit rose 215.7% to 39.77 trillion won. Yonhap put the average analyst estimate at 59.67 trillion won. The company set records on revenue and operating profit but missed on the bottom line.
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SK hynix announced an additional 60 trillion won return plan after finishing an earlier 40 trillion won program. It also plans to return most of its gains from its Kioxia investment through special dividends. The coverage I reviewed gives no split between buybacks and dividends and no timeline. Until a filing lays those out, read it as a stated plan.
Investors had been pushing for this. AFP reported that calls for bigger payouts grew after the shares slipped from their June record highs on concerns about AI spending by US tech companies. Kim Dae-jong, a business professor at Sejong University, told AFP the stock was down nearly 60% from that peak, calling it “the main reason the company needs to focus on winning back shareholders.”
Why Micron, SanDisk and Western Digital Moved
Micron: It has the most direct link. Micron sells DRAM (the working memory inside servers) and HBM (stacked DRAM that sits next to AI chips). On the September 30 earnings call, Micron’s operating chief Manish Bhatia said “we really don’t have line of sight to when supply and demand balance.” SK hynix’s quarter supports that view. Micron has already guided to fiscal first-quarter revenue of $61.5B ±$1.5B, so the report backs up a forecast that was already on the table.
SanDisk: SanDisk is a pure NAND company (the storage chips inside SSDs), so SK hynix’s results offer an early read on memory demand heading into its own report. SanDisk is expected to report on October 29 after the close, against guidance of $10.30B–$10.80B in revenue.
Western Digital: Its connection is the weakest. Western Digital sells hard drives, so all it gets from this report is a general signal on storage demand. Its own report on October 22 already covered that.
Reality Check: Peak Fears Are Already in the Price
MS Hwang of Counterpoint told AFP that “quarterly earnings have not yet reached their peak and that the upward trajectory will likely sustain at least through 2027.” He also named the biggest risk: “a scenario reminiscent of 2018, where cloud service providers simultaneously pull back on their order volumes.” Kim said “the extraordinary level of earnings the company is generating today may not be sustainable one or two years from now.”
Bloomberg ran a headline the day before saying strong earnings had not been raising memory stocks. Over the past month, Micron fell about 11%, SanDisk 23% and Western Digital 15%.
Does This Change Anything for Memory Investors?
I’ve owned NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) for over 15 years, and SK hynix’s HBM goes into NVIDIA’s AI systems, so I follow this supplier closely. My view is that the premarket move is a relief bounce. It supports the memory shortage, but it doesn’t answer the question of whether earnings have topped out. HBM is only one piece of the AI expansion, and we rounded up seven other suppliers (power, cooling, networking) in a free report on the AI infrastructure trade. Micron fits your portfolio if you believe the shortage lasts through 2027. If you agree with Kim, this bounce looks more like a pause than a turn for Micron.
Here is how to check. If SanDisk reports revenue above $10.80B on October 29 and the shares hold above $1,366.97 the next session, SK hynix’s record quarter kicked off a real recovery for memory stocks. If not, the 8% jump was SK hynix’s 60 trillion won pledge doing the work.
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