Shuli Ren

Talk about K-power. South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc. has raised $26.5 billion from the US stock market, the biggest first-time share sale by a foreign company. The question now is whether the trillion-dollar firm can satisfy competing demands from exacting stakeholders.

The chipmaker’s blockbuster US listing signals South Korea’s arrival on the global economic stage, but retail investors should tread carefully, says Shuli Ren for Bloomberg Opinion.

Don’t you feel bad for South Koreans who lost their shirts even as their national champion SK Hynix Inc. raised $26.5 billion from a blockbuster US listing? It’s the single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds that did them in.

Investors love an oligopoly. Imagine an industry dominated by a few large, long-standing players. They can earn outsized profits in boom times and avoid crashes thanks to rational capital spending. The existential questions, though, are whether these firms might turn on each other, and is the industry’s entry barrier high enough.

Investors need to make just one decision right now — whether or not to own semiconductor stocks.

When an initial public offering is too exciting, markets worry that it will suck out all the oxygen. SpaceX’s post-listing slump has soured the mood toward hot IPOs in the US. Now it’s China’s turn to tame the tempest.

What makes an initial public offering great? One might say SpaceX’s recent IPO was a success. Global investors were fervently chasing its shares during book-building, but the actual debut was orderly. Trading was smooth and the stock finished 20% higher on the first day, giving speculators a nice little bonus to go home with. Elon Musk, meanwhile, was handed with $86 billion to fund his grand ambition, which ranges from Mars exploration to orbiting AI data centers in space.

China is a latecomer, but it has conquered the global car industry with electric vehicles and green tech with solar panels and energy-storage batteries. Why should the outcome be any different with the AI supply chain? This is the question global investors must ask themselves.

Chinese models and chips are not at par with those in the West, and their suppliers aren’t as profitable. But does that even matter?

South Korea is home to the world’s hottest and most volatile stock market this year. The Kospi’s near 40% tumble in just 27 trading days is comparable to China’s market crash in 2015. But with an easing of the global AI stock rout, it’s natural to ask if the benchmark index is destined for a rebound.