A regulatory filing with the Financial Supervisory Service on Thursday showed Chey purchased 3,620 common shares of SK hynix earlier in the day at an average price of 1,353,677 won per share.
The investment was worth about 4.9 billion won ($3.5 million) based on the purchase price. By 10:50 a.m. Friday, SK hynix had surged to 1,613,000 won, lifting the value of the stake to roughly 5.84 billion won and generating an unrealized gain of nearly 940 million won in less than a day.
The filing marked Chey's first reported direct holding in the world's second-largest memory chipmaker. The stake represents less than 0.01 percent of the company's 730.5 million outstanding shares.
The purchase came after a steep correction in South Korea's semiconductor sector.
SK hynix and other AI-linked chipmakers have been under heavy selling pressure since late June as investors questioned whether the pace of global artificial intelligence infrastructure spending could be sustained. The selloff was amplified by heightened volatility following the launch of single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds tied to major semiconductor companies.
The market rebounded sharply Friday as foreign investors returned to semiconductor stocks after a strong rally in U.S. technology shares overnight and growing expectations that hedge-fund deleveraging had largely run its course.
Chey had already signaled confidence in the industry's long-term prospects.
Speaking at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Jeju Forum on July 17, he said memory demand would continue to expand despite near-term market swings.
"Memory demand will continue to grow, so the stock should rise over the long term," Chey said. "Rather than buying and selling repeatedly, simply holding shares is a better way to preserve wealth."
The latest purchase appears to reinforce that conviction, with Chey personally adding SK hynix shares during one of the sector's sharpest corrections before the stock staged a powerful rebound.
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