Memory stocks fall after prominent South Korean policymaker floats “citizen dividend” from AI tax revenues

US memory stocks are getting slammed on Tuesday after South Korean policymaker Kim Yong-beom suggested that citizens should get a “national dividend” funded by AI profits.

Now, those remarks have since been watered down: South Korea’s “Blue House” (or presidential office) said these remarks reflected the official’s personal views. Kim later indicated that his suggestion referred to excess tax revenues from leading chip giants, rather than any new windfall tax.

The KOSPI Index, and top weights Samsung and SK Hynix, finished off their lows after this clarification, but the damage still spread stateside.

Are Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings South Korean companies?

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No, they are not.

But they are memory stocks, and this seems to have been enough of a catalyst to throw a wrench into the skyward trend for the cohort.

Along with being highly correlated by the nature of their businesses, US memory stocks also recently started to trade in the same vehicle as their South Korean counterparts. The Roundhill Memory ETF — the fastest ever to surpass $6 billion in assets, per Bloomberg Intelligence — holds all of these companies within the same wrapper.

The near parabolic run in these stocks had raised the risk that this group could reverse course for any reason — or no reason whatsoever. (Remember Google’s TurboQuant? I don’t.)