New York, Jan 6, 2026, 13:08 EST — Regular session
- Western Digital shares rose about 16% in early afternoon trading, tracking a broader jump in storage and memory stocks
- Investors pointed to CES chatter and renewed bets on AI-driven demand for data infrastructure
- Traders are watching Friday’s U.S. jobs report for clues on the Federal Reserve’s rate path
Western Digital shares jumped 15.8% to $217.54 in early afternoon trade on Tuesday, as investors piled back into data-storage names tied to AI infrastructure spending. 1
The move matters because storage and memory names have become a proxy for AI capital spending. Samsung co-CEO TM Roh called the current supply squeeze “unprecedented,” as makers divert capacity to high-bandwidth memory — specialized DRAM used in AI servers — and prices in some segments have more than doubled, TrendForce data show. 2
Buying picked up as Wall Street weighed a fresh round of CES headlines, with keynote speeches from AI executives drawing traders back into the theme. “Keynote addresses … had reinvigorated the AI trade,” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, said. 3
Peers also climbed sharply: Sandisk was up 23.6%, Seagate gained 11.4% and Micron added 6.9% in midday trade.
At CES, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang highlighted memory’s growing role in AI inference — running a trained model — and Nvidia outlined a new memory platform, MarketWatch reported. Sandisk, which split from Western Digital last year, also used the show to roll out an “Optimus” brand for its internal solid-state drives, the company said. 4
Western Digital’s last quarterly update set the backdrop for the rally. The company forecast fiscal second-quarter revenue of about $2.9 billion, plus or minus $100 million, and non-GAAP gross margin of 44% to 45%, after reporting 27% revenue growth in its fiscal first quarter. 5
But the storage trade has a history of abrupt reversals when supply catches up or large cloud customers pull back orders. Morningstar analyst William Kerwin warned in a note cited by Barron’s that the durability of recent price strength remains an open question. 6
Investors will next watch U.S. labor data, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics set to release the December employment report on Friday, Jan. 9, at 8:30 a.m. ET. A surprise in hiring or wages could reset rate expectations and shift risk appetite across high-momentum tech names, including Western Digital. 7
