SK Hynix Jumps 11% as Asia Tech Stocks Rebound Amid AI Spending Debate

SK Hynix shares surged more than 11% on the Korea Exchange on Wednesday, leading a broad recovery across Asian technology stocks as investors reversed course following a sharp sell-off earlier in the week tied to concerns about artificial intelligence spending.

The jump came just two sessions after SK Hynix recorded its biggest-ever single-day decline, when profit-taking accelerated amid questions about whether AI infrastructure investment was running ahead of fundamentals.

Domestic rival Samsung Electronics rose 6.8%, while Seoul Semiconductor climbed 6.4%. The recovery extended into Japan, where Lasertec gained 6.4%, Advantest climbed 4.2%, Disco rose 2.8%, and SoftBank Group advanced 0.8%. Tokyo Electron gained 0.9%, though Renesas Electronics slipped 0.2%.

The Asian session tracked a Wall Street rebound in which the VanEck Semiconductor ETF rose 2.5%. Micron Technology and Lam Research each gained approximately 5%, while Applied Materials and Teradyne advanced more than 3%.

Not all market participants interpreted Wednesday's gains as a clean signal. Jordan Cvetanovski, chairman and chief investment officer at Pella Funds, acknowledged that demand for AI infrastructure remains strong, but said warning signs are appearing. "I'm starting to see some really concerning behavior in markets," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia," adding that the volatility of recent sessions were "all the classic signs that we are in for a kind of rude shock coming in the AI space."

The debate over market froth extended to commentary in the United States, where opposing views sharpened on Tuesday. "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer argued that AI-driven enthusiasm does not constitute a bubble comparable to the dot-com era, pointing to lower interest rates, stronger corporate earnings, and what he called more reasonable valuations.

Cramer noted that SK Hynix trades at roughly four times 2027 earnings estimates, while Micron trades at approximately six times 2027 estimates. He also cited the S&P 500's current multiple of around 20 times forward earnings as meaningfully lower than the more than 25 times forward earnings the index commanded heading into 2000, according to FactSet data. "That's a big difference, and while 20 isn't exactly cheap, it's certainly not expensive like 2000," he said.

Cramer also noted that memory-chip makers Micron and Sandisk have surged more than 243% and 644%, respectively, so far this year — gains he characterized as outliers rather than signals of broad excess. "There is some froth, but the froth does not represent what we trade. What we own," he said.

The day also brought a sobering data point from the enterprise software sector. IBM shares fell approximately 25% after the company preannounced disappointing second-quarter results ahead of its scheduled earnings release, with revenue, earnings, and software revenue growth all falling short of Wall Street expectations. CEO Arvind Krishna acknowledged the company "faltered" as several large customer deals failed to close.

Cramer said the IBM shortfall reflects a broader redistribution of corporate IT budgets, with companies increasingly directing spending toward cybersecurity, hardware, and AI-related consumption costs — at the expense of other software categories. "Unfortunately for IBM, they have too many products and services that fall into the 'other types of spending' categories, even if they also have a decent overall AI narrative," he said, declining to recommend the stock even after the decline.

The divergence between surging chip names and struggling enterprise software companies underscores the increasingly narrow concentration of AI spending — a dynamic that analysts say is likely to persist as IT managers finalize budgets heading into 2027.

Disclaimer