'Black Monday' rout doesn't stop NH Investment from raising targets on Samsung, SK Hynix

Domestic stocks plunged at the open Monday as fears of global interest rate hikes and a sharp overnight decline in US semiconductor shares hammered the market, sending heavyweight chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix sharply lower.

Against that backdrop, NH Investment raised its price targets on both companies, drawing attention from investors.

In a report released Monday, NH Investment analyst Ryu Young-ho maintained a "buy" rating on both stocks while lifting his price target on Samsung Electronics to 530,000 won from 490,000 won and on SK Hynix to 3.2 million won from 3.1 million won.

"Through Computex 2026, I am convinced that the industry has entered a new cycle distinct from the previous AI cycle, driven by the spread of agentic AI," Ryu said. "In particular, the growing importance of CPUs in the agentic AI era is becoming more pronounced, and we have confirmed the potential for expansion into edge devices."

He added that the amount of DRAM required by a single AI inference server has more than doubled compared with conventional general-purpose servers, widening the price gap between commodity memory chips and HBM and "securing the justification for HBM price increases next year." He said the trend "is expected to put a firmer floor under next year's earnings."

NH Investment set its operating profit forecast for Samsung Electronics at 365 trillion won this year and 506 trillion won next year. For SK Hynix, it raised its operating profit outlook to 272.4 trillion won for this year and 439.9 trillion won for next year.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics fell nearly 9 percent in early morning trading Monday, slipping below the 300,000-won level, while SK Hynix dropped more than 8 percent to trade in the 1.9 million-won range.