SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) has gone from forgotten legacy brand to one of 2025’s most explosive AI‑adjacent stocks. Spun off from Western Digital in February, the flash‑memory specialist has since been added to the S&P 500 and other major indices and, at one point, traded more than five‑fold above its early‑year levels. [1]
As of 4 December 2025, the stock is trying to find its footing after a breathtaking run and a bout of sharp volatility. Some models still see double‑digit upside into year‑end, while fundamental analysts such as Trefis warn the shares could just as easily lose half their value if the memory cycle turns. [2]
This article pulls together the latest news, earnings, forecasts and risks around Sandisk stock as of today’s close, to help investors understand what’s really driving SNDK into 2026.
Where Sandisk stock stands today
According to Investing.com’s daily data, Sandisk closed on 4 December 2025 at $205.53, up 5.74% on the day. The shares traded between $189.77 and $206.00 with roughly 3.9 million shares changing hands. [3]
Over the past 12 months, SNDK has delivered a ~176% gain, with a 52‑week range of $28.27 to $284.76 and an average daily volume of about 6.1 million shares. [4] That jump reflects the stock’s meteoric rise following its February spin‑off and subsequent AI‑storage buzz, plus the impact of index‑fund buying around its S&P 500 inclusion. [5]
Volatility has surged in the last two weeks:
- On 20 November, the stock dropped more than 20% in a single session. [6]
- On 24 November, it jumped over 13% intraday and another ~9% after hours on news it would join the S&P 500. [7]
- On 3 December, SNDK slid 5.34%, according to pre‑market summaries from Yahoo Finance and broader market round‑ups. [8]
For traders and long‑term investors alike, SNDK is currently a high‑beta, high‑story stock rather than a sleepy large‑cap.
From Western Digital spin‑off to AI‑storage pure play
SanDisk is hardly a new name in tech. Founded in 1988 (originally as SunDisk), the company built its brand on memory cards, USB flash drives and SSDs before being acquired by Western Digital in 2016. [9]
In late 2023 Western Digital announced plans to split into two independent public companies: one focused on hard‑disk drives (HDDs) and the other on flash storage operating under the SanDisk name. [10] That separation was completed on 21 February 2025, with Sandisk Corporation relisted on the Nasdaq under ticker SNDK while Western Digital kept the HDD business. [11]
CEO David Goeckeler, previously Western Digital’s chief executive, now runs the standalone Sandisk. In its first reported quarter after the split (quarter ended 28 March 2025), the company posted $1.7 billion in revenue, down slightly year‑on‑year and 10% sequentially, and a GAAP loss of $103 million after a $1.83 billion goodwill impairment. Gross margin slipped to 22.7% from 27.4%, highlighting how tough the NAND market looked at the start of 2025. [12]
Despite that rocky beginning, management stressed the ramp of its BiCS 8 218‑layer NAND technology, new ultra‑high‑capacity QLC chips being qualified for 128 TB and 256 TB SSDs, and actions to cut supply and raise prices in response to a “mini‑NAND glut.” [13] Those themes—AI‑driven demand, technology leadership and ruthless supply discipline—have defined the stock’s story ever since.
2025 results: from red ink to expanding margins
Full‑year FY25:
SanDisk’s 2025 annual report and 10‑K filings show revenue around $7.4 billion, up roughly 10% year‑on‑year, driven by a 6% increase in exabytes shipped and modestly higher average selling prices. Gross margin expanded to about 30% from 16% the prior year as pricing improved, product mix shifted to higher‑value drives and under‑utilisation charges and 2024 inventory write‑downs rolled off. [14]
Fiscal Q4 2025 (reported August):
- Revenue: $1.90 billion, up 12% sequentially and above guidance.
- GAAP loss: $23 million (–$0.16 per share).
- Non‑GAAP EPS: $0.29.
- Gross margin: about 26%.
These figures beat both internal guidance and Wall Street expectations, helping extend the stock’s rally at the time. [15]
However, a subsequent guidance update dampened some enthusiasm: for the first quarter of FY26, Sandisk projected adjusted EPS of $0.70–$0.90, below analysts’ roughly $0.95 consensus, citing rising fab start‑up costs of about $60 million (up from $42 million in the previous quarter). The stock fell almost 5% on that news. [16]
Fiscal Q1 2026 (reported November):
More recently, the narrative shifted back in Sandisk’s favour. Q1 FY26 results showed:
- Revenue of roughly $2.3 billion, up ~21% sequentially and about 23% year‑on‑year. [17]
- Non‑GAAP EPS of $1.22, a 37% beat versus analyst expectations, with gross margin around 29.8%. [18]
The combination of faster revenue growth and sharp margin expansion is what turned SNDK into a market favourite—and what underpins many of the aggressive bullish forecasts.
Fresh news driving SNDK as of December 4, 2025
S&P 500 inclusion and index flows
In late November, Sandisk was added to the S&P 500, as well as to the S&P 500 Information Technology, S&P 500 Equal Weighted and S&P Global 1200 indices, while being removed from various small‑ and mid‑cap benchmarks. [19]
Coverage from Barron’s and Investopedia notes that the stock had already soared over four‑fold in 2025 on AI‑storage enthusiasm, giving it a market value close to $30–31 billion before the index promotion. [20] On the day Sandisk actually joined the S&P 500, shares spiked nearly 11% in early trading before pulling back as profit‑taking set in. [21]
Since then, the pattern has been classic post‑inclusion hangover: sharp gains in the run‑up, followed by whipsaw sessions as index‑fund buying fades and active investors re‑assess valuation. The 5–6% swings on 3–4 December fit that script. [22]
Product launches and supply tension
On the product side, Sandisk continues to flesh out its lineup:
- In August, it launched the WD Blue SN5100 SSD, a PCIe 4.0 DRAM‑less drive using Kioxia’s latest BiCS8 QLC NAND and a new in‑house controller. The company claims up to 30% higher performance versus its predecessor, delivering sequential read speeds up to 7,100 MB/s and capacities from 500GB to 4TB, with US pricing starting around $54.99. [23]
- Trefis and other coverage also highlight a new 1TB USB‑C “plug‑and‑stay” Extreme Fit drive, aimed at creators and laptop users who need compact, high‑capacity storage—another way Sandisk taps into the AI content and creator economy. [24]
At the same time, there are signs of tight NAND supply. Reports out of Korea and tech‑industry blogs describe how SSD vendor Transcend has faced delayed deliveries of NAND flash from both Samsung and SanDisk for over a month, with some NAND costs reportedly jumping 50–100% in a single week. [25] That anecdotal evidence lines up with Sandisk’s own comments about cutting output and raising prices to stabilise the market. [26]
Sector context: HDDs vs flash in the AI era
While Sandisk has captured investor imagination, HDD makers Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate remain crucial players in the AI data‑storage build‑out. A recent Citi note, cited by Barron’s, argued that WDC and Seagate are among the “real AI winners”, raising WDC’s price target to $200 after its stock surged about 263% year‑to‑date. The report also pointed out that HDDs are still more cost‑effective than flash for bulk storage, meaning SanDisk and flash rivals like Pure Storage complement rather than replace HDD demand. [27]
Western Digital’s latest quarterly results underscore this split: for its September quarter (fiscal Q1 2026), WDC reported 27% revenue growth and 137% growth in adjusted EPS to $1.78, driven largely by AI‑driven HDD demand, and declared a $0.125 per‑share dividend payable on 18 December 2025 to shareholders of record as of 4 December. [28] Sandisk’s flash operations are now fully separated from those HDD numbers, reinforcing its role as a pure‑play NAND and SSD bet.
What forecasts and analysts are saying about SNDK
Wall Street’s view: “Moderate Buy,” but with big dispersion
MarketBeat classifies Sandisk as a “Moderate Buy” with a consensus rating score of 2.76, more positive than both its industry peer group and the S&P 500 overall. [29]
In early November, following Sandisk’s earnings beat, a wave of analysts raised their price targets:
- Morgan Stanley: to $273 (Overweight).
- Bank of America: to $300 (Buy).
- Cantor Fitzgerald: to $300 (Overweight).
- Benchmark: to $260 (Buy).
- Citigroup: to $280 (Buy).
- Wells Fargo: to $230 (Equal Weight).
- Wedbush: to $260 (Outperform).
- Susquehanna: to $250 (Positive).
- UBS: reiterated $230 (Overweight). [30]
Zacks, via a “Bull of the Day” feature syndicated on Nasdaq, highlighted Sandisk’s 37% EPS beat, revenue of $2.38 billion vs $2.12 billion expected, and margin improvement to nearly 29.8%, arguing that tight supply‑demand conditions could last through 2026–27. Their long‑term model lifts next‑year EPS estimates from about $10.39 to $24.04, an increase of roughly 130%. [31]
Simply Wall St’s November 11 analysis notes that 15 analysts now forecast 2026 revenue of $10.0 billion, a 28% increase over the last twelve months, and expect Sandisk to swing from loss to around $9.30 in EPS as the recovery continues. That same report says the average analyst price target was increased 59% to $193, which at that time sat below the actual share price—an early hint that valuation was getting stretched. [32]
Retail‑facing sites echo the idea of limited near‑term upside. Benzinga’s SNDK dashboard cites a consensus price target of about $211.29, only a few dollars above where the shares trade today. [33]
Not every analyst is bullish. MarketBeat records a Sell (D+) rating from Weiss Ratings as of December 1, indicating concerns about valuation and cyclicality even after the earnings fireworks. [34]
Algorithmic and technical forecasts
Algorithmic models present a mixed picture. CoinCodex, which combines quantitative indicators and technical analysis, currently projects that SNDK could gain around 13%, reaching $232.40 by 31 December 2025 and $220.48 by 2 January 2026. At the same time, the site labels the short‑term sentiment as “Bearish”, with its Fear & Greed index at 39 (Fear), 14 green days out of the last 30 sessions and 14.5% price volatility. [35]
Tools like MarketChameleon, which study earnings‑day price patterns, also point to frequent double‑digit swings around Sandisk’s reports—a fact supported by the wild moves seen around its Q4 FY25 and Q1 FY26 releases. [36]
The stark bear case: could SNDK really drop 50%?
A December 3 report from Trefis takes the other side of the trade head‑on. In “Can Sandisk Stock Drop 50%?”, the analysts argue that after a 5× year‑to‑date rally and with shares trading near $210, Sandisk now changes hands at roughly 16× forward earnings and ~4× forward sales, a rich multiple for a highly cyclical commodity‑like business. [37]
Their central worry is that NAND pricing is fragile. If competitors such as Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron ramp up higher‑layer NAND production, the current tightness could flip back into oversupply, compressing margins and forcing a re‑rating. Under a more typical down‑cycle multiple of about 2× sales, Trefis sees Sandisk plausibly trading near $110–$120, essentially a 50% decline from current levels. [38]
They also flag:
- Ongoing margin pressure from costly transitions to very high‑layer NAND.
- Rising competition in enterprise SSDs from hyperscalers’ custom designs and lower‑cost Chinese manufacturers.
- The fact that AI demand is indirect for Sandisk—AI boosts storage needs, but not as directly or as profitably as it does for GPU or HBM suppliers. [39]
Even so, Trefis concedes that if supply remains tight longer than expected, cost optimisations pay off and the brand maintains its strong consumer and OEM position, Sandisk could justify its current valuation or even climb higher. [40]
Key risks and what to watch in 2026
- Memory cycle whiplash
Sandisk’s own commentary earlier this year described a “mini‑NAND glut” with high‑single‑digit price declines before supply cuts and price hikes stabilised conditions. [41] Today’s reports of delayed shipments and rapid cost jumps to customers like Transcend suggest the pendulum has swung the other way. If history is any guide, that tightness can sow the seeds of the next down‑cycle. [42] - Rising capex and fab start‑up costs
Guidance for Q1 FY26 bakes in roughly $60 million of fab‑start‑up charges, up from $42 million the prior quarter, already dragging on profit forecasts. Management says these will decline over time, but any delays, yield issues or additional fab projects could pressure earnings again. [43] - Valuation and post‑index hangover
After the S&P 500 inclusion trade runs its course, incremental demand has to come from active managers and retail investors. The violent 20% drop on 20 November and the subsequent 5–6% daily moves underline how quickly sentiment can shift when growth stocks are priced for perfection. [44] - Macro and AI‑capex sensitivity
Broader market pieces from Reuters and others have already highlighted sessions where concerns about Federal Reserve policy or slowing AI spending hit high‑multiple tech, with SanDisk among the harder‑hit names. [45] Any pullback in hyperscaler capex or recession fears could hit SNDK disproportionately hard.
Bottom line: is Sandisk stock still attractive?
Putting it all together:
- Price & performance: SNDK trades around $205–$206, well below its recent peak near $285 but far above its early‑2025 levels, and roughly in line with the $211 consensus price target. [46]
- Fundamentals: FY25 revenue of about $7.4 billion with gross margins roughly doubling versus 2024, followed by Q1 FY26 revenue growth above 20% and EPS of $1.22, show a company firmly back in growth mode as the NAND cycle recovers. [47]
- Sentiment & forecasts: Wall Street is generally positive, and some targets stretch into the $260–$300 range, but algorithmic models and more cautious analysts warn of a market that may already be pricing in a lot of good news. [48]
For short‑term traders, Sandisk remains a high‑momentum, high‑volatility name that will likely swing hard on every earnings report, NAND pricing headline or AI‑capex data point.
For long‑term investors, SNDK represents a leveraged bet that flash‑based storage captures a larger slice of the data‑center and edge‑compute market over the rest of the decade. The upside case hinges on AI‑driven demand, continued margin expansion and disciplined capacity additions; the downside hinges on the industry’s historic tendency to overshoot on supply and crush pricing.
As always, this article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. Anyone considering Sandisk stock should evaluate their own risk tolerance, time horizon and diversification and, if needed, consult a qualified financial adviser.
References
1. en.wikipedia.org, 2. coincodex.com, 3. www.investing.com, 4. www.investing.com, 5. www.investopedia.com, 6. www.investing.com, 7. www.trefis.com, 8. finance.yahoo.com, 9. en.wikipedia.org, 10. www.westerndigital.com, 11. investor.sandisk.com, 12. blocksandfiles.com, 13. blocksandfiles.com, 14. www.moomoo.com, 15. www.sec.gov, 16. www.investopedia.com, 17. investor.sandisk.com, 18. www.nasdaq.com, 19. www.investopedia.com, 20. www.barrons.com, 21. www.investopedia.com, 22. www.investing.com, 23. www.tomshardware.com, 24. www.trefis.com, 25. www.kedglobal.com, 26. blocksandfiles.com, 27. www.barrons.com, 28. www.investors.com, 29. www.marketbeat.com, 30. www.marketbeat.com, 31. www.nasdaq.com, 32. simplywall.st, 33. www.benzinga.com, 34. www.marketbeat.com, 35. coincodex.com, 36. marketchameleon.com, 37. www.trefis.com, 38. www.trefis.com, 39. www.trefis.com, 40. www.trefis.com, 41. blocksandfiles.com, 42. www.kedglobal.com, 43. www.investopedia.com, 44. www.investing.com, 45. www.reuters.com, 46. www.investing.com, 47. www.moomoo.com, 48. www.marketbeat.com
