As global chip giant SK Hynix makes its Nasdaq debut Friday, the listing will test whether the stock will be able shed its long-standing “Korea discount.” 

“Korea discount” refers to the tendency of South Korean companies to trade at lower valuations compared to global peers due to concerns over corporate governance and opaque conglomerate structures.

The listing on the Nasdaq via American depositary receipts, or ADRs, is set to grant SK Hynix direct access to the world’s deepest pool of capital, a move that experts debate could narrow this discount.

LSEG data showed SK Hynix trades at just 4.8 times 12-month forward earnings, compared with the industry median of 29.84 times and U.S. rival Micron Technology‘s 6.6 times, despite its leadership in the fast-growing high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, market.

“We see room for that gap to narrow with the ADR listing, though we do not expect the Korea discount to close entirely,” Rolf Bulk, head of semiconductors and infrastructure at Futurum Group told CNBC.

The divergence in price-to-earnings ratios between Micron and SK Hynix is mainly due to “access” and “familiarity,” as SK Hynix’s limited accessibility for U.S. funds has kept its valuation lower for years despite its stronger position in AI memory, said Zavier Wong, market analyst at multi-asset trading platform eToro.

“Hynix’s stock going up isn’t the same as the discount shrinking, so while its price moved up, the gap against Micron didn’t budge,” Wong said. 

Shares of Micron have surged nearly 250% this year, while SK Hynix has soared 240%, LSEG showed.

Peter Kim, global investment strategist at KB Financial Group, echoed that the listing should also improve access for overseas investors who have historically faced hurdles in buying Korean equities.

“Additional access could help global investors trade the Hynix stock, which still trades at a discount to the KOSPI, Micron, and Samsung,” he said. “A Nasdaq listing would be a major factor in narrowing that discount, as the listing requirements needed to list there would ease some concerns among U.S. investors.”

Nasdaq listing rules require companies to meet financial and liquidity thresholds, including minimum market value, public float, shareholder count and share-price requirements. Listed companies are also subject to corporate governance standards covering areas such as audit committees, director independence and shareholder voting rights.

With ADRs priced at $149 apiece and the IPO oversubscribed, the company will raise about $26.5 billion, but analysts said access to U.S. investors could ultimately prove more valuable than the capital itself.

Ji Cheong, associate director at S&P Global Ratings, said that while SK Hynix’s IPO…

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday that SK Hynix’s upcoming Nasdaq debut will give U.S. investors a new way to bet on the artificial intelligence boom, but warned the South Korean memory-chip giant comes with significant risks.

“We know the memory chip business is on fire and if you’re willing to accept the volatility, I think you could do a lot worse than this one,” said the “Mad Money” host. “If you really want it, though, put on a small position and leave room to buy more into weakness.”

SK Hynix is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday through American depositary receipts, or ADRs, which enable U.S. investors to more easily own shares of companies listed on foreign stock exchanges. The roughly $26.5 billion offering is expected to rank among the largest ever, following massive deals like Cerebras and SpaceX over the past months.

SK Hynix’s South Korea-listed shares have soared roughly 2,550% since ChatGPT launched in November 2022, propelling its market value above $1 trillion. Despite those gains, Cramer said the stock still looks inexpensive, trading at just over seven times this year’s earnings.

“Their memory chips may sell at a huge premium, but the stock trades at a discount,” he said.

Cramer noted the bull case rests on expectations that AI spending will continue driving enormous demand for memory chips. But on the flip side, Cramer said, “the big concern is that, historically, memory chips have been a boom and bust business, so when supply eventually catches up with demand, you don’t want to be left holding the bag.”

Recent trading underscores that volatility. SK Hynix shares have fallen about 25% from their June 25 peak, joining a broader sell-off in memory stocks that has hit fellow Korean tech giant Samsung and Idaho-based Micron despite strong earnings reports.

“Fortunately, that means you’re not coming in at the tippy-top for this stock. But this thing’s a rollercoaster that can go down fast,” Cramer said.

For investors considering SK Hynix, Cramer said the opportunity ultimately comes down to whether AI has permanently changed the notoriously boom-and-bust memory business. But that’s difficult to answer in the present.

“Again, historically, every memory chip boom has led to a memory chip bust.”

Hello, this is Justina Lee writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

The latest developments from the NATO Summit are signaling strains in the Europe-U.S. relationship, with no new commitments from alliance members over assistance with the Middle East conflict.

Renewed U.S.-Iran tensions have raised energy concerns, with oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowing down.

Looking past geopolitical worries, the tech and financial sectors are taking significant strides. Trillion-dollar South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix is set to list in the U.S., while Goldman Sachs has won deals to manage a combined $70 billion in retirement assets for Verizon Communications and Lockheed Martin.

The NATO Summit became a one-man-show, with the meeting revolving largely around President Donald Trump — and his disappointment with the alliance members.

“I’ve never witnessed such dramatic reversals of fortune, affecting so many global players, compressed into just 48 hours,” said CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick. And while U.S.-Iran tensions escalated as the summit was ongoing, Trump left Turkey on Wednesday without any new commitments from NATO to assist with the conflict.

“I’m not happy with NATO, because of the fact that they didn’t want to help us with the No. 1 state sponsor of terror, that’s Iran,” Trump said during an appearance with NATO chief Mark Rutte. “They were unwilling to help us.”

Renewed tensions in the Middle East, meanwhile, have raised concerns over energy supplies, with Iran attacking commercial ships. Though signs that diplomatic efforts were ongoing helped calm oil markets after prices shot up in the aftermath of U.S. strikes on Iran.

Over in the tech space, investors stay glued to the trillion-dollar South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix‘s debut in U.S. markets. The company’s stock has surged more than sevenfold over the past year, driven by the global memory crunch.

SK Hynix is not the only tech company in the spotlight. Competitor Micron‘s shares surged Thursday after it announced a new round of multi-billion investments aimed at boosting the U.S. semiconductor supply chain. The memory chipmaker, which hit a $1 trillion market cap for the first time in May, has seen shares skyrocket almost 250% in 2026.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs won deals with Verizon Communications and Lockheed Martin to manage a combined $70 billion in retirement assets. This is one of the larger recent announcements in the fast-growing market for outsourced corporate investing.

—Justina Lee

Inside NATO’s extraordinary 48 hours that revealed Trump’s grip on global diplomacy

For 48 hours in Ankara, Turkey, it felt as though the world was moving on Donald Trump’s timetable.

Markets lurched. NATO allies braced for…

Micron shares rose 7% on Thursday as the company announced a new round of investments aimed at boosting the U.S. semiconductor supply chain, and plans to accelerate its spending in the country through 2035.

The new strategic investment of up to $3 billion includes $500 million for Taiwanese-headquartered GlobalWafers to expand its wafer development and manufacturing in its Texas facilities, and also comes with a 10-year supply agreement for raw silicon wafer capacity.

“Securing a reliable supply of critical input materials is essential to supporting Micron’s long-term growth and technology roadmap,” said Ben Tessone, Micron’s chief procurement officer, in a press release.

In a separate announcement, the chipmaker said it will also raise its planned U.S. investment to $250 billion through 2035, roughly a $50 billion increase, as memory demand from the artificial intelligence buildout skyrockets.

Other names in the chip space rallied on Thursday, with Applied Materials, KLA Corp and Lam Research up 7%, ARM Holdings up 11%.

U.S. investors are getting a new way to buy into the memory boom.

SK Hynix, the second most valuable company in South Korea, behind only Samsung, is slated to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Friday. The market debut, coinciding with the company’s hefty expansion plans for the U.S., comes after a more than sevenfold increase in its stock price over the past year, a rally that’s lifted SK Hynix’s market cap to about $1 trillion.

Many Americans don’t know the name SK Hynix, but they’ve likely had plenty of exposure to the company’s products. Along with Micron and Samsung, SK Hynix is one of three primary makers of computer memory used in laptops and phones sold by companies such as Apple and Dell.

Memory has long occupied a sleepy corner of the semiconductor market. That’s changed dramatically over the last couple years as surging demand for artificial intelligence has upended the industry, creating severe shortages for the chips and sending prices to all-time highs.

SK Hynix is the leader in the high-performance memory that’s used in AI chips from Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company. While memory components are typically relatively simple chips, often called RAM, that every computer needs to store data, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is more complicated, as it stacks many layers of traditional memory together. SK Hynix was the first to do it, and analysts project the company will capture more than half the market this year.

In June, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited SK Hynix on a trip to Seoul, as the two companies announced a multiyear partnership. Nvidia is the biggest HBM buyer.

“That advantage has positioned SK Hynix as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the rapid growth in AI infra,” said TrendForce analyst Ellie Wang.

SK Hynix will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol SKHY (initially SKHYV.) The company plans to raise around $29 billion by issuing American depositary receipts (ADRs) in order to fund new factories and equipment, according to a regulatory filing.

Some of that buildout is taking place in the U.S. SK Hynix is constructing its first production facility in the country, scheduled for completion in 2028. The $4 billion plant in West Lafayette, Indiana, will be used for what’s known as advanced packaging, an essential part of the process for producing HBM that involves connecting and stacking individual chips into larger systems that can be used in a computer.

SK Hynix expects to receive up to $458 million in funding from the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, passed in 2022 as the centerpiece of a plan to build up the domestic chip industry. The company could also receive up to $570 million of loans from the U.S. Commerce Department.

It’s not just HBM that’s boosting SK Hynix. The whole memory industry is experiencing soaring prices due to the AI crunch, which means…