SK hynix $SKHY reported its most profitable quarter on record and still missed. Revenue was 79.3 trillion won against 84.1 expected, and operating profit 60.5 against 64.1. The 93.9 trillion net profit headline is carried by one time investment gains. The stock has fallen sharply over the past month, so the question is whether the memory cycle has turned. When a memory cycle turns, prices fall first, and margins follow quickly because the cost base does not move with them. Prices did not fall this quarter. SK hynix got about 30% more for its DRAM while market prices rose roughly twice that. More and more of what SK hynix sells, HBM above all, goes out under long term agreements whose pricing does not track the market, so a rally reaches them slowly and partially. That gap is what the miss came down to. Guidance for the third quarter covers volume only, around 10% growth in DRAM bits shipped. Korean memory companies do not guide on pricing, and pricing is the open variable. So the question is whether that gap persists, because if those contracts hold the price, another market price increase does not reach revenue the way people assume.