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"If only I had bought 1 million won worth of Hynix back then..."

A scene from an early 2000s sitcom has recently gone viral again on social networking services (SNS) and online communities. The renewed interest is due to the discovery that Hynix's stock price was displayed as 460 won in the stock ticker shown in the scene.

On May 17, a screenshot from the SBS sitcom "Live Straight" was circulated on social media threads. The scene features Park Youngkyu and Lee Eungkyung, a thrifty couple in the show, checking stock prices on their computer.

What caught viewers' attention were the names and prices of the stocks displayed on the computer monitor. Hynix's current price was shown as 460 won. Hyundai Motor was at 35,900 won, and LG Chem at 45,450 won. This particular episode aired in December 2002. At that time, Hynix was in a very different situation from today's SK hynix. Hynix, originally Hyundai Electronics, had acquired LG Semicon but was undergoing a workout process due to a heavy debt burden and a downturn in the semiconductor industry. This was before the "SK" prefix was added to its name.

The scene also captures the market sentiment of the time. Hynix's trading volume was shown as exceeding 400 million shares. Despite concerns over liquidity issues and restructuring, trading volumes soared as day traders flocked to the stock. However, the situation today, more than 20 years later, is entirely different. Hynix started anew as SK hynix after being acquired by SK Group in 2011. Since then, it has grown into a global memory semiconductor company focused on DRAM and NAND flash, and recently, it has been recognized as a key player in the artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor supply chain, leveraging its competitiveness in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).

The stock price soared as well. On May 15, SK hynix climbed to an intraday high of 1,995,000 won, closing at 1,819,000 won. Compared to the 460 won seen in the 2002 sitcom scene, that's roughly a 3,954-fold increase. As a result, comments like "If I had bought 1 million won worth back then, I'd have 4 billion won now" have been circulating online. However, this is an exaggerated calculation. If you had bought 1 million won worth at 460 won per share, you could have purchased about 2,173 shares. At the recent closing price of 1,819,000 won, that would amount to about 3,950,000,000 won. In reality, if you factor in capital changes since 2003, actual investment returns could differ from a simple price comparison.

Still, netizens' reactions remain enthusiastic. Online, comments include: "I really thought it would go bankrupt back then," "I wish I could tell my past self to buy Hynix," "I was too scared to buy at 460 won, but at 1.8 million won it looks attractive," "In the stock market, it's the one who holds on that wins," and "History only becomes clear in hindsight." Others noted, "Even if you bought back then, you probably couldn't have held on," "How many people would have held on to a stock they feared would be delisted for 20 years?" "It looks easy in hindsight, but it must have been terrifying at the time," and "That scene shows more about survival bias than investing."

Yonhap News Agency

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Meanwhile, on May 17, Nomura Securities raised its target price for Samsung Electronics from 340,000 won to 590,000 won and for SK hynix from 2,340,000 won to 4,000,000 won in its latest report. This is the first time Nomura Securities has suggested a target price in the 4 million won range for SK hynix. The firm explained that the two companies should now be re-evaluated as 'structural growth stocks' rather than traditional cyclical stocks. While memory prices used to fluctuate based on PC and smartphone demand, the report noted that the spread of AI has now placed memory demand in a phase of structural growth. In the report, Nomura Securities also stated, "The 12-month forward price-earnings ratio (PER) for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix remains around 6 times," and argued, "They should be valued at levels similar to TSMC, where the PER is around 20 times."