# Stocks Fluctuate, SK Hynix Record Profit Quarter

An episode of [Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia Edition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663863437), 23 Apr 2026, 17 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/58e85be7-dbb5-4043-afed-af80014dc0b3/586f9da0-77ce-4be7-9b9b-b43500175f2f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=27143354-63aa-4ac5-965d-af80014dc0d3

Business and finance news from the Asia-Pacific. Stocks and crude oil swung at the open in a nervous start to trading in Asia, as lingering concerns about the war in Iran clashed with strong corporate earnings that are helping steady investor sentiment. We spoke to Mark Cranfield, Bloomberg's MLIV Strategist. Plus - SK Hynix Inc. reported a five-fold jump in quarterly profit and reiterated plans to ratchet up its capex "significantly" this year, underscoring surging prices of memory chips that underpin global artificial intelligence development. The Korean chipmaker is riding an AI spending boom that's reshaping the memory sector and offsetting fears around supply chain disruptions stemming from war in the Middle East. The outperformance comes as investors debate whether the advent of AI is igniting a super-cycle of demand that will help SK Hynix and its rivals break a decades-old cycle of boom and bust. We heard from Tom Kang, Counterpoint Research Director. He spoke to Bloomberg's Paul Allen and Haidi Stroud-Watts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Chrisner. So
[0:13] Speaker 2: we know that the US in Iran remained locked in
[0:16] Speaker 2: a battle for control of the Strait of Horror Moves.
[0:18] Speaker 2: Earlier today, Iran attacked three ships near this critical waterway. Now,
[0:23] Speaker 2: on Tuesday, President Trump extended the ceasefire that was due
[0:27] Speaker 2: to expire today, And earlier today we had some confusing
[0:31] Speaker 2: signals from the President. He told Fox News the ceasefire
[0:34] Speaker 2: extension was for two to five days, and then later
[0:38] Speaker 2: the White House said the President had not set a
[0:40] Speaker 2: firm deadline for a proposal from Iran. Now we also
[0:44] Speaker 2: know that the US is maintaining its naval blockade on
[0:47] Speaker 2: vessels going to and from Iranian ports. It's a move
[0:51] Speaker 2: that Iran's Foreign Minister Abbasarachi called a violation of the ceasefire.
[0:57] Speaker 2: For a closer look at what we're seeing in market action,
[0:59] Speaker 2: let's bring in Mburg strategist Mark Cranfield, who joins from
[1:02] Speaker 2: our studios in Singapore. Thank you for being here to
[1:05] Speaker 2: say that the market is on edge right now, I
[1:07] Speaker 2: think is an understatement. Give me a sense of how
[1:11] Speaker 2: skittish things are from your point of view, Well, we.
[1:14] Speaker 3: Just had a great example of it this morning. So
[1:16] Speaker 3: it's Thursday morning in Asia. People were coming in expecting
[1:21] Speaker 3: a very positive day. We just had excellent earning from
[1:24] Speaker 3: sk Heiniz, one of the biggest companies in Korea and
[1:27] Speaker 3: one of the drivers of the whole AI infrastructure boom
[1:31] Speaker 3: which you're seeing going across the world. Samsung S, Taiwan Semiconductor,
[1:36] Speaker 3: the other major companies in Asia in the same story.
[1:39] Speaker 3: So everything looked very good. Korean stocks opened higher as expected,
[1:43] Speaker 3: and suddenly within a few seconds, the whole mood changed dramatically.
[1:48] Speaker 3: It appears that some investors had seen social media stories
[1:52] Speaker 3: suggesting that Iran and the US had started fighting again.
[1:55] Speaker 3: It now looks very much as though they were fake stories.
[1:58] Speaker 3: But that didn't stop traders from completely ditching their good
[2:03] Speaker 3: mood which they had at the start of the session,
[2:05] Speaker 3: and oil prices jumped high, Treasury bonds got sold off,
[2:08] Speaker 3: the dollar was strong, and equity future sold off. Most
[2:11] Speaker 3: of that has been reversed almost as quickly as it started,
[2:14] Speaker 3: but it just shows you that investors are working on
[2:18] Speaker 3: the assumption that there is not going to be a
[2:20] Speaker 3: big resumption of fighting in the Middle East. But if
[2:24] Speaker 3: it did happen, you can just see how edgy everybody is,
[2:27] Speaker 3: and they would be willing to take risk action very
[2:31] Speaker 3: very quickly should that materialize.
[2:33] Speaker 2: I was speaking earlier in the day to a member
[2:36] Speaker 2: of the equities team in New York who said, the
[2:38] Speaker 2: market just wants to go higher. What is the role
[2:41] Speaker 2: that momentum is playing in what we're seeing on a
[2:44] Speaker 2: day when in the States, the S and P and
[2:46] Speaker 2: the Nasdaq each closed it record highs.
[2:49] Speaker 3: Equity investors will always like to extrapolate good news that
[2:53] Speaker 3: by nature they're an optimistic group of people. I've worked
[2:56] Speaker 3: with both fixed income investors and equity investors and the
[3:00] Speaker 3: completely different mood. Fixed income investors tend to be generally
[3:04] Speaker 3: more pessimistic because the bond markets do best when economies
[3:08] Speaker 3: are struggling, and the complete opposite is the case for
[3:10] Speaker 3: equity investors, So they want to extrapolate when there's the
[3:13] Speaker 3: sense of good news. Plus earnings have been coming in
[3:15] Speaker 3: nicely as well. From assuming there is no more major
[3:20] Speaker 3: conflict in the Middle East, equity investors can price for
[3:24] Speaker 3: the scenario that we have. Oil prices can be high
[3:27] Speaker 3: but remain relatively statous. As long as if oil prices
[3:29] Speaker 3: stay around about ninety dollars per barrel, that can last
[3:32] Speaker 3: for an extended period. As long as bond markets are
[3:35] Speaker 3: relatively calm and currency markets are relatively calm. That is
[3:39] Speaker 3: pretty much the case. We've had. The huge durations we
[3:42] Speaker 3: saw in the middle of March have largely calmed down.
[3:45] Speaker 3: But from an equity investor's point of view, you can
[3:47] Speaker 3: price in higher prices in oil, but for a sustained period,
[3:52] Speaker 3: you know that is a factor which is going to
[3:53] Speaker 3: be in euroquity calculations. As long as companies are making
[3:56] Speaker 3: good earnings, you can live with it. That's pretty much
[3:59] Speaker 3: the situation we have for now. Incessant demand for all
[4:03] Speaker 3: things chips related to AI production. It's something that they
[4:07] Speaker 3: can live with. What they can't live with is when
[4:10] Speaker 3: you get a sudden spike and oil prices that is uncontained.
[4:14] Speaker 2: It's interesting we had recent data from the Energy Information
[4:17] Speaker 2: Administration in the US showing that American oil exports and
[4:21] Speaker 2: I would include both fuel and crude oil rose to
[4:25] Speaker 2: new record high in the most recent period. I'm wondering
[4:29] Speaker 2: whether that helps explain a little bit why perhaps American
[4:33] Speaker 2: markets could maybe overlook certain aspects of what the war
[4:39] Speaker 2: with Iran is doing to energy, because at the end
[4:42] Speaker 2: of the day, and we've got data to support the
[4:44] Speaker 2: idea that the US is an energy powerhouse.
[4:47] Speaker 3: Well as long as there are no shortages of fuel
[4:51] Speaker 3: and fuel products in the United States, as long as
[4:55] Speaker 3: exports help to sustain GDP growth in the US, and
[4:59] Speaker 3: the picture there will look quite different. Say, for example,
[5:02] Speaker 3: compared to Europe. Europe is clearly at the other end
[5:05] Speaker 3: of the scale. They rely completely on imports. They're looking
[5:09] Speaker 3: at losses in growth because of supply constraints in various products,
[5:13] Speaker 3: not just in energy, but in others as well. You're
[5:15] Speaker 3: already seeing airlines slashing like loft tense. One of the
[5:18] Speaker 3: biggest airlines in Europe is cutting twenty thousand flights during
[5:22] Speaker 3: the summer because they have to make a decision about
[5:25] Speaker 3: which routes are going to be more profitable and which
[5:27] Speaker 3: ones they can get rid of in order to save costs.
[5:32] Speaker 3: That's just an example of how it's already hitting Europe severely.
[5:35] Speaker 3: US may well be able to protect itself from all
[5:38] Speaker 3: of those negative things which are happening in other parts
[5:40] Speaker 3: of the world. If, of course, again we go back
[5:44] Speaker 3: to the same point. If there's a re escalation in
[5:46] Speaker 3: the Middle East, all bets are off. But certainly the
[5:48] Speaker 3: US is in a much stronger position than most countries.
[5:51] Speaker 2: So if we look at the price of oil and
[5:53] Speaker 2: extend that to the ramifications that it may have for
[5:57] Speaker 2: the market that produces electric the power plants that rely
[6:02] Speaker 2: on crude or some derivative of that to power the
[6:06] Speaker 2: generators that are used to create electricity, does that create
[6:09] Speaker 2: a little bit of uncertainty where the AI trade is
[6:12] Speaker 2: concerned because these data centers are so heavily reliant on power.
[6:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I mean, we could easily go back to
[6:21] Speaker 3: the situation we saw briefly in the fourth quarter of
[6:25] Speaker 3: last year, when equity markets were getting concerned that all
[6:29] Speaker 3: this heavy investment in things like building data centers, the
[6:33] Speaker 3: whole capex build up across the board for AI products
[6:37] Speaker 3: was not going to be sufficient in comparison to the
[6:41] Speaker 3: amount of income stream that was coming from the other side.
[6:43] Speaker 3: So there's going to be a negative trade off there.
[6:46] Speaker 3: We're overlooking that again for the time being because chip prices,
[6:50] Speaker 3: the demand for chips seems to be insatiable, and every
[6:53] Speaker 3: time chip makers want to raise prices. No one complains
[6:56] Speaker 3: about it. They just continue to buy, so income streams
[6:58] Speaker 3: are protected for the time. But there's a crossover point.
[7:01] Speaker 3: There always is a tipping point when somebody says these
[7:06] Speaker 3: numbers do not add up. You're putting too much money
[7:08] Speaker 3: in it and returns don't match up. And we saw
[7:10] Speaker 3: it briefly last year. It could easily happen again before
[7:14] Speaker 3: the end of this year. We don't know exactly when
[7:16] Speaker 3: it will be. Equity markets are assuming it's going to
[7:18] Speaker 3: be way down the track, but it could be very
[7:21] Speaker 3: It could be a very quick turn around, particularly if
[7:24] Speaker 3: it'll go back into a scenario where suddenly futures markets
[7:27] Speaker 3: in oil start repricing one hundred dollars plus for a
[7:30] Speaker 3: period and then people say, well, this is a way
[7:32] Speaker 3: back into a regime where we see elevated prices at
[7:36] Speaker 3: a higher threshold than we even thought they could be.
[7:39] Speaker 3: So now we have to reconsider everything.
[7:40] Speaker 2: So what is the conversation then on the macro when
[7:43] Speaker 2: you consider the drag on economic growth that that would
[7:46] Speaker 2: have higher oil, particularly for economies in the APAC region,
[7:51] Speaker 2: is there a conversation around kind of bringing down expectations
[7:55] Speaker 2: for overall GDP.
[7:56] Speaker 3: We're going to get a good test of it next week.
[7:58] Speaker 3: Most of the major central banks in the world have
[8:01] Speaker 3: policy meetings next week. Hot you can bet that in
[8:05] Speaker 3: all the press conferences, but probably in their discussions anyway,
[8:08] Speaker 3: everybody will be asking them about stagflation, the risk of
[8:11] Speaker 3: stagflation in the G ten world. Sustained high energy prices
[8:17] Speaker 3: clearly mean that CPI numbers, inflation numbers will be tending
[8:21] Speaker 3: on the higher side. There will be above average, particularly
[8:25] Speaker 3: compared to what we've seen over the past couple of years.
[8:27] Speaker 3: And yet the hit to growth, potential slow down of
[8:30] Speaker 3: growth later in the year and in going into twenty
[8:33] Speaker 3: twenty seven is real, and central banks are stuck somewhere
[8:36] Speaker 3: in between the two. They see their inflation numbers rising.
[8:40] Speaker 3: We've already seen the Reserve Bank of Australia's hiked twice
[8:42] Speaker 3: in a row, Singapore's titan monetary policy. We're expecting Philippines
[8:46] Speaker 3: to do the same today. And then you've got pricing
[8:49] Speaker 3: in the markets which suggest European Central Bank Bank of
[8:51] Speaker 3: England would all start moving towards higher interest rates. And
[8:54] Speaker 3: yet they may also be warning at the same time
[8:58] Speaker 3: that growth will come in below expectation. It is a
[9:00] Speaker 3: very unpleasant, difficult situation for central bankers to explain, but
[9:04] Speaker 3: we're going to probably hear a lot more about it
[9:06] Speaker 3: next week.
[9:06] Speaker 2: All right, Mark, good stuff. Thank you so very much.
[9:08] Speaker 2: Bloomberg strategist Mark Cranfield joining from our studio in Singapore
[9:13] Speaker 2: here on the Daybreak Asia podcast. Welcome back to the
[9:23] Speaker 2: Daybreak Asia Podcast. I'm Doug Krisner. So, as Mark mentioned
[9:26] Speaker 2: in our last segment, we heard from South Korean chip
[9:29] Speaker 2: maker sk Heinex and the company reported a fivefold jump
[9:34] Speaker 2: in quarterly profit. Sk Heinex also reiterated plans to ramp
[9:38] Speaker 2: up its capex significantly this year due to surging prices
[9:41] Speaker 2: of memory chips. And that's where we begin our conversation
[9:45] Speaker 2: with Tom Kang. Tom is director at Counterpoint Research, and
[9:49] Speaker 2: he spoke to Bloomberg TV host Heidi Stroudwats and Paul Allen.
[9:53] Speaker 4: I just wondered what your key takeaways from those sk
[9:55] Speaker 4: Heinex numbers were.
[9:58] Speaker 5: Well, the numbers are very surprising. Sk Heinex. We thought
[10:03] Speaker 5: they would report record earnings and they did, but it
[10:07] Speaker 5: was much higher than we expected. So we were expecting
[10:10] Speaker 5: fifty trillion, but they did more than that, and the
[10:14] Speaker 5: profit is amazing thirty seven trillion Korean Wand so this
[10:21] Speaker 5: trend we see coming from AI is affecting the memory
[10:25] Speaker 5: market a lot, and sk Hynix is benefiting the most.
[10:29] Speaker 5: We can see.
[10:31] Speaker 4: Talk to us about the Kapek story as well, because
[10:34] Speaker 4: sk Heinis sitting aside a significant sum here also.
[10:40] Speaker 5: Right, So sk Heinis they were reluctant in the beginning
[10:46] Speaker 5: of the year because they weren't sure if this AI
[10:49] Speaker 5: boom was here to stay or would go away and
[10:52] Speaker 5: risk it's a risky move to invest. But now they
[10:56] Speaker 5: made the decision that they have to invest because AI
[11:01] Speaker 5: companies like open Ai and Anthropic have been showing good
[11:05] Speaker 5: revenue numbers now and so it looks like the AI
[11:09] Speaker 5: trend is real and it's generating revenue. And there's another factor.
[11:14] Speaker 5: They see CXMT, their largest Chinese competitor, investing heavily and
[11:21] Speaker 5: so they're feeling the heat. So they made the decision
[11:25] Speaker 5: to invest in capex and this will be a big
[11:28] Speaker 5: change for the memory industry.
[11:32] Speaker 1: Tom It's interesting everyone's still calling this a trend, right.
[11:36] Speaker 1: Do you see a situation where we're starting to see
[11:38] Speaker 1: chip and memory stocks not being traded and treated lack
[11:43] Speaker 1: a commodity anymore, and not being susceptible to the usual
[11:46] Speaker 1: kind of boom bus cycle that we might see. They
[11:48] Speaker 1: seem a lot more intrinsically tied to AI companies, AI
[11:53] Speaker 1: accelerated projects and those prospects.
[11:58] Speaker 5: Well, this is a big super cycle and it's lasting
[12:03] Speaker 5: longer than we expected. Actually, if we look at the
[12:07] Speaker 5: Q two contract prices, they're still rising, so it's not
[12:11] Speaker 5: going away, and we've never seen such a cycle being
[12:15] Speaker 5: extended to such a long period. But definitely, the memory
[12:19] Speaker 5: market is cyclical. It's their ups and downs. We just
[12:25] Speaker 5: have longer cycles sometimes. So the downturn will definitely happen,
[12:30] Speaker 5: but it will probably happen at a time we never expect.
[12:35] Speaker 5: But you can say that the need for memory from
[12:38] Speaker 5: the AI side is going to continue. But as you
[12:43] Speaker 5: see companies like sk Heinex invest more and then companies
[12:49] Speaker 5: like CXMT from China invest even more, there wills at
[12:56] Speaker 5: a certain moment be over supplying the industry, and that's
[13:00] Speaker 5: what everyone is fearing. But the problem is no one knows,
[13:03] Speaker 5: and it doesn't seem to be coming this year or
[13:07] Speaker 5: even early next year. So they've made decisions to invest
[13:12] Speaker 5: with confidence.
[13:15] Speaker 1: You've mentioned one of the challenges being China. The other one,
[13:18] Speaker 1: obviously in a broadly macro sense, is what's going on
[13:22] Speaker 1: in the Middle East. You've said that it's minimal the disruption.
[13:25] Speaker 1: Do you see a situation where the commodities price pressure,
[13:29] Speaker 1: the energy price pressure, starts to have an impact on
[13:34] Speaker 1: these foundaries, on production and costs.
[13:40] Speaker 5: Yes, of course, the crisis in the Middle East is
[13:44] Speaker 5: going to be a worldwide problem. And actually oil prices
[13:50] Speaker 5: are very important because this is linked to electricity power,
[13:57] Speaker 5: and power is very important for AI. So right now
[14:01] Speaker 5: it's not just memory that's in shortage, it's power. It's
[14:05] Speaker 5: electricity that's also very in a very tricky situation where
[14:11] Speaker 5: demand is exceeding supply. So if oil prices go up,
[14:16] Speaker 5: and if energy prices go up, it will affect the
[14:19] Speaker 5: AI industry, and then AI companies will have to slow down,
[14:25] Speaker 5: and that could affect the memory industry. But right now
[14:30] Speaker 5: it's not just AI. We see, you know, demand for
[14:36] Speaker 5: better memory in PCs, mobile everywhere, so there could be
[14:44] Speaker 5: some impact, but unless the oil prices go beyond one
[14:51] Speaker 5: hundred twenty per barrel, it won't be It won't slow
[14:55] Speaker 5: down the AI boom.
[14:56] Speaker 4: Right now, in terms of s k Heinix, it's just
[15:01] Speaker 4: been an incredible twelve months. Really that stock us up
[15:04] Speaker 4: by more than five hundred and seventy percent on year
[15:08] Speaker 4: in about ninety percent year to date. How much more
[15:11] Speaker 4: upside do you see for sk Heinix. You have a
[15:14] Speaker 4: target for the year end.
[15:18] Speaker 2: Right So.
[15:21] Speaker 5: The surprise we see in the Q on numbers comes
[15:25] Speaker 5: from the fact that the long term contract prices were
[15:29] Speaker 5: not rising in January, but it started to rise in February.
[15:34] Speaker 5: So companies like Apple, Samsung, Howe, Motorola, they make long
[15:41] Speaker 5: term contracts. The long term contract prices started to rise
[15:46] Speaker 5: in February, and we saw this rise rapidly in March,
[15:49] Speaker 5: and that was the extra margin, the extra profit that
[15:53] Speaker 5: sk Heinex earned in Q one. So we see this
[15:58] Speaker 5: continuing in April. According to our price tracking. In April,
[16:04] Speaker 5: the prices are rising even more so it's not slowing down.
[16:09] Speaker 5: So we expected better Q two. So the profits, the
[16:15] Speaker 5: Q one profits are actually going to be smaller than
[16:20] Speaker 5: the Q two or Q three in Q four, so
[16:22] Speaker 5: I can just say that un till the end of
[16:26] Speaker 5: this year, there's definitely a lot of Upside for sk Heinex.
[16:30] Speaker 2: That's Tom Kang, director at Counterpoint Research, speaking with Bloomberg
[16:34] Speaker 2: TV host Heidi Stroud Watts and Paul Allen and bringing
[16:37] Speaker 2: you their conversation here on the Daybreak Asia Podcast. Thanks
[16:42] Speaker 2: for listening to today's episode of the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia
[16:46] Speaker 2: Edition podcast. Each weekday, we look at the story shaping markets, finance,
[16:51] Speaker 2: and geopolitics in the Asia Pacific. You can find us
[16:54] Speaker 2: on Apple, Spotify, the Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel, or anywhere else.
[16:58] Speaker 2: You listens again tomorrow for insight on the market moves
[17:02] Speaker 2: from Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Prisoner
[17:07] Speaker 2: and this is Bloomberg

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