NEW YORK, January 7, 2026, 10:32 EST — Regular session
- Sandisk shares fall nearly 3% after Tuesday’s 27% jump on AI-storage optimism
- Bank of America hikes price target to $390, keeps buy rating on NAND demand thesis
- Investors look to Jan. 29 earnings for pricing and capacity signals
Sandisk Corp shares fell 2.9% to $339.4 in morning trading on Wednesday, as traders trimmed positions after a fast run in data-storage names. The stock has traded between $331.74 and $350.53 so far. Western Digital slid 10.2% and Seagate Technology dropped 8.9%, while Nvidia gained 1.9%.
The move follows a surge of more than 27% for Sandisk on Tuesday after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking at CES in Las Vegas, described a new layer of storage technology aimed at speeding up AI workloads. Western Digital rose 17%, Seagate gained 14% and Micron climbed 10%, with all four stocks hitting record highs. 1
Bank of America raised its price objective on Sandisk to $390 from $300 and kept a buy rating, saying NAND flash — the storage used in solid-state drives — is “becoming a more important tier in AI inferencing”, or running AI models after they are trained. Analyst Wamsi Mohan said demand was “strong and pricing robust” and cited TrendForce data pointing to a 20% to 30% quarter-on-quarter jump in NAND prices in the fourth quarter, followed by another 30%+ rise in the first quarter. Mohan also said Sandisk would consider adding capacity only with long-term agreements that support pricing and margins, and that profitability should improve as startup costs ease and utilization rises. 2
Investors have spent years buying the AI chipmakers. Now the argument has shifted: the data those chips chew through has to sit somewhere fast, and that pulls the spotlight onto flash storage and enterprise solid-state drives.
Huang on Monday said Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin platform is in “full production” and pitched a storage layer he called “context memory storage” to help chatbots respond faster to longer conversations. Nvidia said major cloud customers including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Oracle are expected to adopt the Rubin systems. 3
Sandisk also used CES to refresh its consumer SSD lineup, announcing it would rebrand its internal drives under the “SANDISK Optimus” name, rolling former WD_BLACK and WD Blue NVMe products into three tiers. The company said products with the updated branding are expected to reach select retailers worldwide in the first half of 2026. 4
But the trade has a simple weak spot: memory prices do not rise in a straight line. A faster supply response, or a pause in cloud spending, can hit both pricing and sentiment quickly.
After touching $350.53 earlier, Sandisk shares dipped as low as $331.74. Traders will be watching whether the stock holds the $330 area; a bounce that clears $350 would put Tuesday’s highs back in view.
Next up is Sandisk’s fiscal second-quarter report on Jan. 29, when it is scheduled to hold an earnings call at 4:30 p.m. EST. Investors will be listening for any change in the company’s view on NAND pricing, enterprise SSD demand and its stance on adding capacity. 5
