South Korea’s stock-market boom is collapsing** spectacularly**   It may be a harbinger   Jul 29th 2026|5 min read   America’s giant technology companies have gone from printing money to incinerating it. The market reckons Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft will collectively report negative free cashflows next year, owing to their extravagant spending on data centres. Yet real fortunes are being made today from Silicon Valley’s gamble on the future.   Three companies are expected to surpass an astonishing $200bn of free cashflow apiece next year. One is Nvidia, an American darling that designs the advanced processors needed to run artificial-intelligence models. The other two are Samsung and SK Hynix, a pair of South Korean outfits that dominate the market for the more mundane memory chips in phones, laptops and, increasingly, data centres. Their windfall represents one of the greatest cross-border transfers of cash in corporate history.   Now a nation newly enamoured of stock markets is discovering that shares can go down as well as up. Since peaking in June the stock prices of Samsung and SK Hynix have crashed by 41% and 52% respectively, wiping $1.2trn from South Korea’s highly concentrated stock market. Those of SK Hynix fell by more than a fifth this week as investors digested a mere six-fold increase in its quarterly operating profit, compared with the year before. Samsung’s shares have not been this volatile since the dotcom era.   South Korea is a great experiment in mixing the extremes of state capitalism and market speculation. Last year, after a failed coup, the country’s president attempted to cheer his country by talking up the stock market (sound familiar?). The KOSpI, its main index, speedily hit a level the government had set as a target.   Ordinary South Koreans withdrew capital from insurers and banks to invest in stocks. Workers threatened industrial action to secure Wall Street-sized bonuses. Those at SK Hynix and Samsung’s chip division settled for an extraordinary 10% of operating profits. At SK Hynix that could amount to $500,000 a person this year, and $800,000 next year. (Goldman Sachs paid a meagre average of $400,000 in total compensation to its employees last year.)   Now a government that just weeks ago was embracing markets is being forced to apologise for them. It was only in April that regulators approved leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to individual South Korean stocks. These funds use derivatives to give investors a multiple of the daily return of a share. For example, if SK Hynix is up by 1%, an investor might receive 2%; or if it is down by 10%, an investor might jump out of a window.   When the selling began in June broker accounts faced margin calls and were shut down by the thousand, causing regulators to suspend new ETF launches. At an emergency meeting on July 29th politicians promised to severely limit the use of these funds. One compared the market to a casino. Shares in the country’s department stores are crashing as fast as those of its chipmakers, in anticipation of the handbags that will now remain on the shelves.   The trillion-dollar question for investors in South Korea is when the price of memory will peak. Bulls argue that data-centre construction and robotics mean demand for memory will outstrip supply into the 2030s. But the increasingly common view is that the same thing will happen to memory chips as has happened to every commodity in every commodity cycle in history—that new supply will, within a year or two, cause prices and profits to fall. Despite their vertiginous rise, Samsung and SK Hynix have on average traded only at single-digit multiples of forward earnings during the past year, suggesting that investors think their profits are at or near their highest point.   Perhaps it is inevitable that the first country to taste the riches promised by AI should be the first to have them taken away. No industry can survive if all the rewards are concentrated in one corner of the supply chain. Yet the dangers facing South Korea’s memory giants are also lurking elsewhere in the AI landscape.   First is the dreaded “commoditisation”. The sales of less advanced memory chips by SK Hynix and Samsung are threatened by the rising market share of Chinese competitors (one of which went public this week to great fanfare). So too are America’s model-makers, which face a potentially existential threat from Chinese open-source models.   Second is the risk that supposedly ironclad spending commitments from customers turn out to be no such thing. Both South Korean firms have made much of their “long-term agreements” with buyers, arguing that pre-payment and price certainty gives them visibility on profits for years to come. Yet judicious investors have begun to fear that customers will find ways of wriggling out of deals when it is advantageous for them to do so. Investors also worry how airtight lease agreements for data centres would prove if model-makers tried to get out of them in a bust. The piles of debt tied to Meta’s giant off-balance-sheet data centre have drawn particular scrutiny.   Picked, shovelled and quartered Nvidia has played an important role in stabilising this precarious situation. Jensen Huang, its leather-jacketed chief executive, has something to say on every debate: last week he published an influential letter in defence of open-source models. But his cheque-book is more important. Mr Huang has constructed a vest web of financial ties that keep the party going. This week it was reported that his company is in talks to guarantee $250bn of commitments from OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, to lease a data centre. More remarkable still is the vague “$500bn” partnership with SK Hynix it announced over the weekend, and how little that seemed to matter to investors this week. Like a central banker meddling in markets, the more Mr Huang intervenes the more nervous investors become. The eventual bust will be all the worse for it. ■     韓國股市熱潮慘烈崩盤，這恐怕只是個前兆 2026 年 7 月 29 日 | 閱讀時間約 5 分鐘 美國的科技巨頭們，已經從過去的「印鈔機」變成了「燒錢機」。市場預估，由於在資料中心上的揮霍式支出，Alphabet、亞馬遜（Amazon）、Meta 與微軟（Microsoft）明年的自由現金流合計將轉為負值。然而，光是憑藉著對矽谷這場未來豪賭的押注，如今就有人賺得盆滿缽滿。 預計明年將有三家公司各自突破 2,000 億美元自由現金流的驚人紀錄。其中一家是美國的寵兒輝達（Nvidia），負責設計運行人工智慧（AI）模型所需的高階處理器。另外兩家則是韓國的三星（Samsung）與 SK 海力士（SK Hynix），這對雙雄壟斷了手機、筆電以及日益擴增的資料中心所需之一般記憶體晶片市場。他們的這筆意外之財，堪稱企業史上最偉大的跨國財富轉移之一。 然而，這個新近狂熱於股票市場的國家，如今正赫然發現：股價能漲，自然也能跌。自今年 6 月觸頂以來，三星與 SK 海力士的股價已分別暴跌 41% 與 52%，從高度集中的韓國股市中抹去了 1.2 兆美元 的市值。本周，儘管 SK 海力士公佈的單季營業利潤較去年同期「僅」暴增了六倍，投資人消化此消息後，其股價仍重挫超過五分之一。三星的股價波動程度，更是達到了自網路泡沫時代以來未曾見過的高峰。 韓國無疑是一場將「國家資本主義」與「市場投機」極端融合的大型實驗。去年，在一場失敗的政變之後，該國總統試圖透過拉抬股市來振奮人心（聽起來很熟悉吧？）。韓國綜合股價指數（KOSPI「高斯皮」。英文讀音近似 KOS-pee）隨即迅速衝上了政府設定的目標關卡。 韓國的普通民眾紛紛從保險公司和銀行提領資金轉而投向股市。勞工們甚至以發動罷工相威脅，要求獲取比照華爾街等級的年終獎金。SK 海力士與三星晶片部門的員工，最終接受了高達營業利潤 10% 的分紅方案。在 SK 海力士，這意味著每人今年可領到 50 萬美元，明年甚至上看 80 萬美元。（相較之下，高盛去年支付給員工的總薪酬平均僅為微薄的 40 萬美元。） 然而，幾週前還在擁抱市場的政府，現在卻不得不為此出面道歉。就在今年 4 月，監管機構才剛批准了連結韓國單一股票的槓桿型 ETF。這些基金利用衍生性金融商品，為投資人提供股票單日報酬率的倍數收益。舉例來說，若 SK 海力士上漲 1%，投資人可能獲利 2%；但若下跌 10%，投資人可能就想跳樓了。 當 6 月拋售潮開始時，經紀戶頭面臨追繳保證金（margin call），數以千計的帳戶遭到強制平倉(強制平倉（又稱爆倉或斷頭）是指當投資人使用融資、期貨或保證金交易時，因為市場價格向反方向大跌或大漲，導致帳戶內的資金與保證金低於規定的最低維持率，券商或交易平台為了防止虧損繼續擴大，自動將持有的部位強制賣出或買回結算的機制。)，促使監管機構緊急暫停新 ETF 的發行。在 7 月 29 日的緊急會議上，政客們承諾將嚴格限制這類基金的使用，更有議員將該市場比作賭場。隨著大家預期高檔包包將繼續擺在架上賣不出去，韓國百貨公司的股價下跌速度，已經跟晶片製造商一樣快了。 對於韓國的投資人而言，價值兆美元的關鍵問題在於：記憶體價格何時見頂？牛市支持者認為，資料中心的建設與機器人技術意味著對記憶體的需求將持續供不應求直到 2030 年代。但越來越普遍的觀點認為，記憶體晶片最終也將重蹈歷史上每一種大宗物資（commodity）週期相同的覆轍——新供給將在一兩年內湧現，導致價格與利潤下滑。儘管經歷了驚人的漲幅，三星和 SK 海力士過去一年的預估市盈率（forward earnings multiples）平均僅處於個位數，這顯示投資人認為他們的利潤已達到或接近頂峰。 第一個品嚐到 AI 帶來巨額財富的國家，卻也是第一個被剝奪這些財富的國家，這或許是某種必然。如果所有回報都集中在供應鏈的單一角落，沒有任何產業能夠長久生存。然而，韓國記憶體巨頭所面臨的危險，同樣潛伏在 AI 版圖的其他角落。 第一，是令人聞之色變的「商品化」（commoditisation）。 SK 海力士與三星在較低階記憶體晶片上的銷售，正面臨中國競爭對手市場份額上升的威脅（其中一家本周才在大張旗鼓中上市）。美國的模型開發商亦是如此，他們面臨著來自中國開源模型可能帶來的毀滅性威脅。 第二，是客戶看似斬釘截鐵的支出承諾，最終可能根本不是那麼一回事。 兩家韓國公司都大肆宣揚與買家簽訂的「長期合約」，聲稱預付款項與價格確定性讓他們對未來多年的利潤有了明確的可見度。然而，明智的投資人已開始擔心，當對客戶有利時，他們總會找到耍賴退場的方法。投資人同樣擔心，如果模型開發商在不景氣時試圖解約，資料中心嚴密的租賃合約究竟能有多大的法律約束力？與 Meta 龐大的資產負債表外資料中心相關的巨額債務，如今正受到格外嚴格的審視。 淘金工具商的四分五裂 在這場岌岌可危的局勢中，輝達扮演了穩定局勢的重要角色。其身穿皮衣的執行長黃仁勳（Jensen Huang）對每場爭論都有話要說：上周他發表了一封極具影響力的公開信，為開源模型辯護。但他的「支票簿」顯然比言論更具影響力。黃仁勳構建了一張龐大的財務關係網，讓這場派對得以繼續下去。據本周報導，輝達正進行談判，打算為 ChatGPT 開發商 OpenAI 租賃資料中心的 2,500 億美元承諾提供擔保。更令人驚嘆的是，輝達在週末宣佈與 SK 海力士達成一項模糊的「5,000 億美元」合作夥伴關係，而本周投資人對此似乎無動於衷。就像干預市場的央行總裁一樣，黃仁勳干預得越多，投資人就越感到不安。未來的泡沫破裂，恐怕也將因此變得更加慘烈。 ■ --Hosting provided by SoundOn