Seagate stock slides nearly 9% as AI-storage rally cools; traders refocus on Friday data

Seagate stock slides nearly 9% as AI-storage rally cools; traders refocus on Friday data

New York, Jan 8, 2026, 14:34 EST — Regular session

  • Seagate shares fell about 9% after a sharp early-week run in storage and memory stocks
  • Western Digital and Sandisk also slid, cooling a CES-linked momentum trade
  • CEO Mosley’s share-sale filing put insider activity back on screens

Seagate Technology Holdings fell 9.3% to $279.72 in afternoon trade, after swinging between $310.50 and $278.26. Western Digital dropped 8.0% and Sandisk fell 7.0% as the broader storage rally lost steam.

The pullback follows a burst of buying earlier this week after comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the CES show in Las Vegas pushed traders toward memory and storage names. Investopedia reported Huang told analysts AI-specific storage and memory are “a completely unserved market today,” and noted Seagate and Western Digital jumped on Tuesday before giving back part of those gains on Wednesday. Investopedia

Why it matters now: this has turned into a crowded, fast-money trade, and it is starting to whip around. The thesis is simple — training and running AI systems creates more data, and “inferencing” (using a trained model to generate outputs) can be storage-hungry too — but the tape is now doing the talking.

A Form 4 filing showed CEO William D. Mosley sold a total of 20,000 ordinary shares on Jan. 2 at weighted-average prices ranging from about $281 to $289. The transactions were made under a Rule 10b5-1 plan — a pre-set trading program companies use to schedule sales — adopted on Feb. 20, 2025, and left him with 429,895 shares directly owned. SEC

Seagate’s last major company update came in October, when it forecast second-quarter revenue and adjusted profit above analysts’ estimates, pointing to demand tied to cloud providers’ spending on hardware for generative AI. Mosley said shipments were being driven by “demand for existing use cases such as social media video platforms as well as growth driven by new AI applications.” Reuters

For now, traders are watching whether the stock can hold around the $280 area after the sharp reversal from above $300. Another leg lower could test how much of the recent run was fundamentals — and how much was chase.

The next near-term test for risk appetite is Friday’s U.S. employment report, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, which can jolt rate expectations and high-beta tech in one move. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Stock Market Today

  • Cotton closes Friday modestly weaker as oil rises and the dollar firms
    January 9, 2026, 8:42 PM EST. Cotton futures closed Friday with contracts steady to 5 points lower; March gained 40 points on the week. Crude oil rose $1.02 to $58.78 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index climbed to 98.900. USDA Export Sales show upland cotton commitments at 6.598 million RB, down 15% year over year and at 57% of the forecast, versus a 77% average pace. Shipments total 2.986 million RB, 26% of the USDA target, behind the 30% average. The Commitments of Traders report showed managed money cutting 1,306 contracts, leaving a net short of 47,772. The Cotlook A Index fell 25 points to 74.80 cents. ICE certified stocks were steady at 11,510 bales. The Adjusted World Price rose to 50.97 cents per pound, up 21 points.
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