HBM
Hudbay Minerals Inc.
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Listen, calling all memory a "commodity" right now is a massive oversimplification that completely ignores the reality of the AI supercycle. You're treating HBM like it's standard DDR from a 2015 desktop.
Here is why the "cheaper source" argument is dead on arrival:
1. HBM is NOT a generic commodity: Legacy DRAM might behave like one, but HBM3E and the upcoming HBM4 are highly complex, custom-engineered, 2.5D/3D packaged silicon. You don't just "swap suppliers" to save a buck. It requires intense, ground-up collaboration with GPU designers.
2. The Untouchable Oligopoly: There is no magical cheap source to pivot to. Only three companies on the planet - Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung - have the advanced packaging tech, patents, and yield rates to produce AI-grade HBM at scale. If the Mag 7 wants to run next-gen AI accelerators (like Nvidia's Blackwell or the upcoming Vera Rubin architecture), they are absolutely forced to pay what those top three demand.
3. The Structural Supply Squeeze: Producing HBM is incredibly resource-intensive. It eats up roughly 3x the wafer capacity of standard DRAM. Because the big three are shifting massive amounts of their fab capacity to meet this insatiable AI memory demand, the overall supply of standard memory is actively shrinking. This supply constraint is exactly what gives memory makers their pricing power back across the entire board.
4. China is Generations Behind: CXMT and domestic Chinese foundries might be able to pump out legacy chips for consumer electronics, but they are years behind the bleeding-edge curve required for AI. Due to export controls, they lack the advanced lithography equipment and packaging yields required for HBM3E and beyond. They cannot act as a relief valve for this bottleneck.
5. The Apple Factor: Even looking outside of data centers at the broader consumer market, the idea that a hardware giant like Apple is going to pivot to inferior, bargain-bin RAM for their iPhones is an absolute joke. With the massive push for on-device AI, they require top-tier, high-bandwidth LPDDR memory. If Apple tried to cut corners with substandard Chinese memory, the devices would bottleneck instantly and they'd get mocked like a fat kid in the schoolyard by the entire tech industry. They are locked into premium suppliers just like the hyperscalers.
The Mag 7 aren't holding anyone hostage this cycle. The memory makers hold the leverage, and their pricing power is locked in by physics, fab capacity limits, and advanced packaging bottlenecks - not just market sentiment.

1. $SKHY or SK Hynix is being listed at \~$165/ share via $29 billion in ADRs on July 10th. They are the dominant player at 61% in HBM, 2nd in NAND and slipped to 3rd in DRAM since their focus has been on HBM.
They traded at a discount to Micron that just had 86% gross margins. If you think Apple, Metta, Nvidia, and Google are going to let the memory cabal hold them hostage, no way. Nvidia is in bed with them but Apple is already looking to source Chinese Dram.
2. In the end you are buying a company that has no idea what demand will be in 5 years which is the type of visibility/vision you need to be CEO of a memory company. Nvidia talked to Micron & SK Hynix before AI and convinced them of his grand plan but you can’t just create fabs out of thin air. They take YEARS!
The other type of CEO has his salesman call Valve and says, “We got X number of DRAM at this price and Valve knows if you don’t say yes they’ll probably never ask again.”
3. Nowhere to go but down. Memory is cyclic but what we have going on in DRAM is some good old price fixing. NAND probably too. They hit peak margins, it literally can barely get better. What are they going to do, buybacks? Maybe spend $200 billion in CapEx that will come online in 2030….
Good night and good luck

Meta hasn't proven anything. Meta didn't say anything except they would sell excess compute but they don't have any. (Their own financials webcast) The article you are referring to is from Bloomberg and has completely been changed and republished to them planning a cloud service. Look it up. Again you're quoting falsehoods.
Softbank is making a massive additional investment. Investments are not stopping. Samsung and Meta are considering a $7b Investment.
DRAM is going up 30% in Q3.
HBM is custom and not cyclical at all. Look it up.
Chinese manufacturers are not presently doing HBM and its 3 to 5 years to stand up the factory and have the capability.
MU is sold out to 2027.
Short it all you want but don't quote inaccurate stuff.

Oh wow, you learned about Jevons paradox today! Good for you. You’re incredibly talented and smart.
Now, if only you actually understood your Micron investment. Newsflash: cheaper AI models mean HBM isn't as necessary. But I guess that doesn't fit into the 30-second TikTok videos where you get your 'MU infinite money glitch' financial advice.

You are missing the math on the actual hardware cost. Even with the prices of High-Bandwidth Memory going up, memory capacity is still extremely cheap compared to compute. An AI accelerator chip costs tens of thousands of dollars mostly because of the compute silicon, not the HBM attached to it. If companies abandon MoE and go back to dense models, the compute required to get the same level of intelligence will explode, which means they would have to buy thousands more GPUs just to do the math. It is financially impossible. Paying for more VRAM capacity to hold sleeping experts is always going to be the much cheaper way to scale up compared to paying for pure compute power.

Exiting the most valuable company in SK? Leaving the bags to American investors to own a company having upward of 90% margin, who controls 60% of the HBM semi marketshare?
Do you even know wtf you're talking about at this point?

Directionally agree, but "demand is still tight" is answering the wrong question. Memory cycles have never once died from demand — they die from supply response. Every single DRAM bust in 40 years started while demand was fine: margins spike, everyone adds capacity into that demand, and 18-24 months later the glut arrives on schedule.
That's why the number to watch isn't datacenter demand or HBM tightness today — it's what Samsung and SK Hynix announce for 2027 capacity. Micron just printed an 84.6% gross margin. In this industry, margins like that aren't just earnings, they're an *invitation*: the strongest capex signal a competitor can receive. The supply response to today's margins is being decided right now, and it shows up in 2027 pricing.
The genuine bull counter is that HBM broke the old mechanics: it's sold on long-term contracts with qualification cycles measured in quarters, bolted to specific GPU platforms — structurally closer to a foundry relationship than a spot commodity. If that holds, the supply response gets rationed by customer qualification instead of raw wafer starts, and the cycle really is different this time.
So I'd reframe your question. "Healthy consolidation vs cycle top" can't be settled by watching price action — both look identical for months. The observable that actually settles it: 2027 HBM contract pricing and the next round of capex guides. If pricing holds while capacity ramps, the cycle is broken. If it cracks, this was the top and the demand narrative won't save it. Everything else is vibes.

The shiniest memory is HBM4 which can only be made on machines not many firms have (intel has EUV, but basically it's the cartel or go home for HBM4).
That being said, for example, Apple is more interested in memory for its hardware so basically even GFS has the capability for DDR5 and HBM 1-3 if they decide to go that route.
And, hyperscalers have even been slapping DDR4 in their shit because the most important thing for training (and general use of AI) is memory capacity, speed is nice, but you can make 3 gb of DDR5 for 1 of HBM4.

Micron and SanDisk are still at reasonable valuations compared to peers. They're being priced as cyclical commodities, buying now is supporting the argument that the AI-led demand for memory (HBM and NAND/HBF) has ended this cyclical demand pattern.

In all likelihood you'll be fine. AI isn't going anywhere. HBM is still in extreme demand. Even conservative estimates suggest 1500 by December.

Not really profit-taking — it's the cyclical curse: for a memory company, the better the print, the louder the "this is the top" argument gets.
MU just posted an 84.6% gross margin on DRAM — a product that spent 40 years as a brutal boom-bust commodity. To a growth investor that's amazing. To anyone who's traded memory cycles, margins that far above history are exactly what a cycle *peak* looks like. So every incremental dollar of margin simultaneously raises earnings and raises the fear that those earnings are about to mean-revert. That's why it trades \~7-8x forward while growing 300%+ — the multiple isn't an oversight, it's the market pricing in a crash in the "E."
Two things piled on this week: supply-glut chatter (competitors racing to add HBM capacity into 2027), and the Meta "excess compute" story that hit the whole AI supply chain — if hyperscalers overbuilt, memory demand is downstream of that.
So the entire debate is one question: did AI structurally break the memory cycle (HBM is sold out on long-term contracts, pricing is locked, earnings are durable), or is this the same cycle every DRAM maker has died on, just bigger? Bulls point to contracted 2026 supply. Bears point to 40 years of history. The price action you're seeing is those two camps fighting — the numbers were never the issue.

The high cost and margins are from HBMs, only the top3 can make hbms. Right now the prices on dram are so high they are making half/half cause its cost efficient. Top3 would do full on HBM if others could pick up the dram productions for them which is where China comes in play but even those made in china by such a CXMT are already being bought up right away so there is a clear supply issue no matter.
Lets not forget the mag 7 held memory producers hostage to the point majority of them went bankrupt because memory was cyclical and got bullied into low prices for decades.

If you want less obvious exposure, look at the bottlenecks: power (grid + transformers), HBM memory, optical networking and data center capex supply chain

These two and more are all memory stocks whether being AI memory (MU, SK Hynix, Samsung) or NAND/SSD (SNDK, WDC, STX) or Memory equipment suppliers-shovels (LRCX, AMAT, KLAC, ASML) or memory packaging/HBM enablers (TSM, ASX, AMKR)
One of them will be the queen of this space and right now MU has the highest chance but who really knows?! nobody
Just buy DRAM and let ETF active management take care of rotating toward the winner.

Listen, calling all memory a "commodity" right now is a massive oversimplification that completely ignores the reality of the AI supercycle. You're treating HBM like it's standard DDR from a 2015 desktop.
Here is why the "cheaper source" argument is dead on arrival:
1. HBM is NOT a generic commodity: Legacy DRAM might behave like one, but HBM3E and the upcoming HBM4 are highly complex, custom-engineered, 2.5D/3D packaged silicon. You don't just "swap suppliers" to save a buck. It requires intense, ground-up collaboration with GPU designers.
2. The Untouchable Oligopoly: There is no magical cheap source to pivot to. Only three companies on the planet - Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung - have the advanced packaging tech, patents, and yield rates to produce AI-grade HBM at scale. If the Mag 7 wants to run next-gen AI accelerators (like Nvidia's Blackwell or the upcoming Vera Rubin architecture), they are absolutely forced to pay what those top three demand.
3. The Structural Supply Squeeze: Producing HBM is incredibly resource-intensive. It eats up roughly 3x the wafer capacity of standard DRAM. Because the big three are shifting massive amounts of their fab capacity to meet this insatiable AI memory demand, the overall supply of standard memory is actively shrinking. This supply constraint is exactly what gives memory makers their pricing power back across the entire board.
4. China is Generations Behind: CXMT and domestic Chinese foundries might be able to pump out legacy chips for consumer electronics, but they are years behind the bleeding-edge curve required for AI. Due to export controls, they lack the advanced lithography equipment and packaging yields required for HBM3E and beyond. They cannot act as a relief valve for this bottleneck.
5. The Apple Factor: Even looking outside of data centers at the broader consumer market, the idea that a hardware giant like Apple is going to pivot to inferior, bargain-bin RAM for their iPhones is an absolute joke. With the massive push for on-device AI, they require top-tier, high-bandwidth LPDDR memory. If Apple tried to cut corners with substandard Chinese memory, the devices would bottleneck instantly and they'd get mocked like a fat kid in the schoolyard by the entire tech industry. They are locked into premium suppliers just like the hyperscalers.
The Mag 7 aren't holding anyone hostage this cycle. The memory makers hold the leverage, and their pricing power is locked in by physics, fab capacity limits, and advanced packaging bottlenecks - not just market sentiment.

1. $SKHY or SK Hynix is being listed at \~$165/ share via $29 billion in ADRs on July 10th. They are the dominant player at 61% in HBM, 2nd in NAND and slipped to 3rd in DRAM since their focus has been on HBM.
They traded at a discount to Micron that just had 86% gross margins. If you think Apple, Metta, Nvidia, and Google are going to let the memory cabal hold them hostage, no way. Nvidia is in bed with them but Apple is already looking to source Chinese Dram.
2. In the end you are buying a company that has no idea what demand will be in 5 years which is the type of visibility/vision you need to be CEO of a memory company. Nvidia talked to Micron & SK Hynix before AI and convinced them of his grand plan but you can’t just create fabs out of thin air. They take YEARS!
The other type of CEO has his salesman call Valve and says, “We got X number of DRAM at this price and Valve knows if you don’t say yes they’ll probably never ask again.”
3. Nowhere to go but down. Memory is cyclic but what we have going on in DRAM is some good old price fixing. NAND probably too. They hit peak margins, it literally can barely get better. What are they going to do, buybacks? Maybe spend $200 billion in CapEx that will come online in 2030….
Good night and good luck

Meta hasn't proven anything. Meta didn't say anything except they would sell excess compute but they don't have any. (Their own financials webcast) The article you are referring to is from Bloomberg and has completely been changed and republished to them planning a cloud service. Look it up. Again you're quoting falsehoods.
Softbank is making a massive additional investment. Investments are not stopping. Samsung and Meta are considering a $7b Investment.
DRAM is going up 30% in Q3.
HBM is custom and not cyclical at all. Look it up.
Chinese manufacturers are not presently doing HBM and its 3 to 5 years to stand up the factory and have the capability.
MU is sold out to 2027.
Short it all you want but don't quote inaccurate stuff.

Oh wow, you learned about Jevons paradox today! Good for you. You’re incredibly talented and smart.
Now, if only you actually understood your Micron investment. Newsflash: cheaper AI models mean HBM isn't as necessary. But I guess that doesn't fit into the 30-second TikTok videos where you get your 'MU infinite money glitch' financial advice.

You are missing the math on the actual hardware cost. Even with the prices of High-Bandwidth Memory going up, memory capacity is still extremely cheap compared to compute. An AI accelerator chip costs tens of thousands of dollars mostly because of the compute silicon, not the HBM attached to it. If companies abandon MoE and go back to dense models, the compute required to get the same level of intelligence will explode, which means they would have to buy thousands more GPUs just to do the math. It is financially impossible. Paying for more VRAM capacity to hold sleeping experts is always going to be the much cheaper way to scale up compared to paying for pure compute power.

Exiting the most valuable company in SK? Leaving the bags to American investors to own a company having upward of 90% margin, who controls 60% of the HBM semi marketshare?
Do you even know wtf you're talking about at this point?