SK Hynix Stock Surges on AI Memory Demand, 10 Leverage ETFs Launched

SK Hynix's stock price has been on a strong upward trend, driven by sustained high demand for AI infrastructure, which is boosting the demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and storage chips. Sandisk's optimistic long-term financial outlook further fueled market confidence in the memory industry. The U.S. market has seen the launch of more leverage and inverse ETFs directly linked to SK Hynix, giving traders more tools to amplify their bullish and bearish bets on this AI memory giant.

On Thursday, August 13, SK Hynix's stock price surged by approximately 9%. Memory and storage stocks also rose in tandem. Sandisk Corp. (SNDK-US) announced its long-term financial outlook, causing its stock price to soar, which in turn boosted the popularity of the memory industry. The market's optimistic expectations for AI, cloud computing, and server demand also refocused investors' attention on SK Hynix's leading position in the high-bandwidth memory market.

As of now, the U.S. market has at least 10 leverage and inverse ETFs directly linked to SK Hynix's American Depositary Receipts. These include the Leverage Shares 2X Long SK Hynix Daily ETF (SKHX-US), ProShares Ultra SK Hynix (SKHU-US), Direxion Daily SK Hynix Bull 2X ETF (SKHL-US), GraniteShares 2X Long SK Hynix Daily ETF (SKUU-US), T-REX 2X Long SKHY Daily Target ETF (HYNX-US), Leverage Shares 1X Short SK Hynix Daily ETF (SKHZ-US), and GraniteShares 2X Short SK Hynix Daily ETF (SKDD-US), totaling 7 products. Subsequently, Corgi launched the Corgi SK hynix 2x Daily ETF (SK-US), and Tradr launched the Tradr 2X Long SK hynix Daily ETF (SKHA-US) and Tradr 2X Short SK hynix Daily ETF (SKHN-US), bringing the total number of related products in the U.S. market to 10.

Among these, SKHX, SKHU, SKHL, SKUU, HYNX, SK, and SKHA all aim for approximately 2 times the daily return of SK Hynix. This means that if the target stock rises by 5% in a day, the corresponding 2x ETF could theoretically rise by approximately 10%, before deducting fees and other costs. Different products mainly differ in terms of expense ratios, liquidity, asset size, and the exchange they are listed on.

Corgi's SK is currently the 2x long ETF with the lowest expense ratio among these products, with an annual expense ratio of 0.50%, and it began trading on Cboe BZX on July 14, 2026. Leverage Shares' SKHX has an expense ratio of 0.75%, ProShares' SKHU has 0.95%, Direxion's SKHL has 0.97%, T-REX's HYNX has 1.25%, GraniteShares' SKUU has 1.50%, and Tradr's SKHA has 1.49%.

On the short side, SKHZ provides -1 times the daily return of SK Hynix, and SKDD provides -2 times the daily return. Tradr's newly launched SKHN also targets -2 times the daily return. SKHZ's expense ratio is 0.75%, SKDD's is 2.20%, and SKHN's is 1.49%, showing that there are significant cost differences among short products as well.

ETF Direction Daily Target Exposure Expense Ratio

SKHX (SKHX-US) Long +2x 0.75%

SKHU (SKHU-US) Long +2x 0.95%

SKHL (SKHL-US) Long +2x 0.97%

HYNX (HYNX-US) Long +2x 1.25%

SKUU (SKUU-US) Long +2x 1.50%

SK (SK-US) Long +2x 0.50%

SKHA (SKHA-US) Long +2x 1.49%

SKHZ (SKHZ-US) Short -1x 0.75%

SKDD (SKDD-US) Short -2x 2.20%

SKHN (SKHN-US) Short -2x 1.49%

The important catalyst for this memory stock rally comes from Sandisk. The company announced its long-term financial model at its investor day on August 13, predicting that its annual revenue growth rate will maintain a mid-to-high single-digit percentage range from the 2028 to 2030 fiscal years, with an adjusted gross margin of approximately 80% and a free cash flow rate of approximately 50%. The company also stated that after completing necessary business investments, it will return 100% of excess cash to shareholders.

Sandisk's stock price rose by 13.7% on Thursday, with a cumulative increase of 25.8% over four consecutive trading days. The company has already signed multi-year commercial model agreements with 8 customers, with related contracts covering approximately 50% of bit demand for the 2027 fiscal year, increasing to approximately two-thirds by 2028. This helps to reduce the long-term cyclical risk that has existed in the memory industry.

The market's optimistic sentiment quickly spread to other memory and storage stocks. Micron Technology, Inc. (MU-US) rose by approximately 6% on Thursday, Western Digital Corp. (WDC-US) rose by approximately 8%, and Seagate Technology Holdings plc (STX-US) rose by nearly 5%. The overall trend reflects investors' renewed confidence in the expansion of AI data centers and enterprise server demand.

Intel Corp. (INTC-US) provided another industry catalyst. CEO Pat Gelsinger announced that the company is exploring new memory architectures, which may involve technologies that more tightly integrate memory with processors. Although Intel has not yet committed to re-entering the memory market on a large scale, this statement shows that AI-driven memory demand and technological competition have once again become important issues in the semiconductor industry.

For SK Hynix, AI memory demand is particularly critical. The company holds an important position in the HBM market, and HBM has become an important component for AI accelerators and data center infrastructure. As the demand for AI model training and inference increases, data centers need higher bandwidth and lower power consumption memory architectures, making HBM a key bottleneck in the AI hardware supply chain.

SK Hynix officially launched its ADR on Nasdaq in July of this year, with the stock ticker SKHY, allowing U.S. investors to directly trade the American Depositary Receipt of this Korean memory giant. After the ADR listing, multiple ETF issuers quickly launched related single-stock leverage products, resulting in the current situation where 10 ETFs are competing for SK Hynix's trading demand.

Wall Street analysts have recently been bullish on SK Hynix. Wolfe Research and RBC Capital initiated research coverage of SK Hynix on August 4, both giving an "outperform" rating and a target price of $200; Cantor Fitzgerald gave a "buy" rating with a target price of $300. The overall market consensus analyst rating is "buy," with an average target price of $245.50.

However, the biggest risk of leverage ETFs is that they track "daily" returns, not a fixed multiple of SK Hynix's long-term cumulative returns. For example, if a 2x ETF's target stock rises by 5% in a day, the ETF could theoretically rise by approximately 10%; but if the target stock experiences multiple days of large fluctuations, the daily rebalancing and compounding effects may cause the ETF's final performance to deviate significantly from twice the cumulative return of SK Hynix over the same period.

Leverage Shares explicitly points out that SKHX is rebalanced daily to maintain 2x exposure, so when SK Hynix's stock price experiences significant volatility, a so-called volatility drag may occur. This means that even if SK Hynix returns to its original price after a period of time, the 2x leverage ETF may still incur losses due to daily compounding and rebalancing.

Tradr also specifically points out in its risk disclosure for SKHA and SKHN,