Goldman Sachs Dismisses Three Key Bearish Concerns Regarding the Memory Chip Sector

Huo Xing Finance reports that on August 7, Justin Park, a trader at Goldman Sachs’ Seoul office, stated in today’s report that recent sharp volatility in the Korean stock market has pushed fundamental expectations for the memory chip industry to an overly pessimistic level, with market pricing implying a degree of pessimism that exceeds actual conditions. The strength and duration of the memory cycle may surpass previous cycles. Goldman Sachs maintains its overweight stance on the Korean market and its 12-month target for the KOSPI at 12,000 points. After reaching a peak on June 22, the KOSPI index plunged 39%, then surged 17.9% on July 31—the largest single-day gain in history. Goldman Sachs believes this sharp decline was not driven by a fundamental deterioration but rather by concerns over the sustainability of the memory cycle, significantly amplified by passive selling from leveraged ETFs and short-term momentum investors following suit. Technically, conditions have clearly improved—leveraged ETF sizes have contracted, margin exposure has declined, regulatory oversight has tightened, and hedge fund positions have retreated, resulting in a cleaner market structure that lays the foundation for a subsequent recovery. Goldman Sachs systematically refutes the three core concerns of bearish investors. Concern One: NVIDIA’s planned reduction in HBM configuration for Rubin Ultra. Goldman Sachs interprets this as confirmation of a structural supply bottleneck for HBM—HBM has become the most constrained critical component in the AI supply chain, and its availability will be a key constraint on global AI industry expansion. Concern Two: The opportunity cost of SK Hynix’s LTA strategy. Significant capacity has been locked into older HBM3E production lines, causing SK Hynix’s DRAM market share to drop to 26% in Q2, while Samsung regained the top position at 39%, narrowing the gap between Micron and SK Hynix to just one percentage point. Goldman Sachs believes SK Hynix’s next-phase competitiveness hinges on its ability to rapidly transition production lines. Concern Three: The narrative of “better-than-expected but below-market-expectations” NAND performance triggered profit-taking, with consumer and edge computing businesses declining环比 by 32%. Management expects meaningful recovery only by 2027. Goldman Sachs’ structural assessment is that DRAM process scaling is nearing saturation—10nm may be the final node, with declining yields and sharply rising capital expenditures structurally supporting a positive outlook for the memory cycle. On the demand side, two positive signals exist: ChangXin Memory has rejected Apple’s price-reduction demands, pricing its products at parity with Samsung and SK Hynix; DeepSeek is planning a “significant” price increase, signaling the end of the era of ultra-low-cost subsidized AI inference.