SK Hynix stock rose as Bernstein issued a research update and revised its analyst target on the HBM memory supplier.

Bernstein lowered its price target on SK Hynix (SKHY), the South Korean memory chipmaker, to 2.7 million won from 3.3 million won, while maintaining an Outperform rating. The analyst cited more conservative assumptions around high-bandwidth memory progress and pricing. SK Hynix's U.S.-listed shares rose 2.87% intraday as of 12:30 p.m. ET.

Analyst Mark Li maintained a 440,000 won price target on Samsung Electronics, positioning the company to gain HBM market share. "We still prefer Samsung among the incumbent suppliers," he noted. Bernstein's revised 2027 HBM price assumptions follow Korean export data from July and August, which showed strength in Samsung's business but weakness in SK Hynix's HBM production. Ongoing HBM4 supply constraints led Li to delay his expectations for the transition from the current HBM3E generation. He now expects HBM to remain less profitable than conventional DRAM through 2027.

Looking at the broader memory market, Bernstein expects conventional memory prices to rise 15–20% in the third quarter and by a high single digit in the fourth quarter, with shortages extending into 2027. Prices are forecast to normalize in 2028, with supplier gross margins declining from roughly 90% to the high 70s. Bernstein maintained Outperform ratings on Micron (MU) and SanDisk (SNDK) with price targets of $1,300 and $3,000, respectively.