Sandisk +3,700%: Is the Memory Rally Priced Out?
Sandisk is up 3,700% off its low as NAND prices soar and earnings jump 22x. Why the 28% pullback from its high turns the story into a valuation call.
From Left-for-Dead to the AI Trade's Favorite
Sandisk is up more than 3,700% from its 52-week low, and 857% in the first half of 2026 alone. The driver is the same squeeze that lifted Micron and SK Hynix: AI data centers are hoovering up every available memory chip, and NAND flash is scarcer than it has been in years.
The fundamentals are doing real work here. Fiscal 2026 earnings per share jumped 22x to $66.51. Gartner sees NAND prices climbing 234% this year, with the shortage running until the end of the decade. Five multi-year supply agreements have locked in $11bn of purchase guarantees — the kind of visibility a commodity-memory name almost never gets.
Where the Rally Starts to Wobble
The tape has been telling a second story for a few weeks, though. From a high near $2,350, the stock has shed 28% and now trades just under $1,700. The Street is already discounting a flawless future: consensus looks for earnings to triple in fiscal 2027 and rise another 213% to $208 a share in 2028. Evercore ISI just lifted its target to $3,100.
The pullback arrived without a single piece of bad news: no profit warning, no crack in NAND pricing. That is what makes it worth watching. When a stock falls while the fundamentals stay intact, the problem has moved from the company to the multiple. The price has already spent part of a future that has not arrived yet.
That is exactly the problem. A stock that has 38x'd in twelve months is leaning entirely on the idea that the memory cycle does not turn this time. NAND has always been brutally cyclical — prices crater the moment new fab capacity comes online. The structural-supercycle case holds as long as AI capex holds. It is a strong thesis. It is not a guarantee.
What It Means for the Trade
Inside the memory complex, Sandisk is the highest-beta expression there is: if NAND keeps ripping, nothing runs faster; if the AI capex wave rolls over, nothing falls harder. The 28% drawdown from the high is the first reminder that even an airtight fundamental story eventually has to clear the valuation bar. Traders who want the theme get the broader read through Micron and the sharper one through Sandisk, and in both, the same open question: how long does the shortage last?