New York, February 2, 2026, 09:29 EST — Premarket
- Shares jumped roughly 6.8%, hitting $576.25 in pre-market trading.
- After Sandisk’s latest results and outlook, Bernstein raised its price target to $1,000.
- Traders are closely tracking if the storage rally can maintain momentum through Friday’s U.S. jobs report.
Sandisk shares jumped 6.8% to $576.25 in Monday’s premarket session following a price target boost to $1,000 from Bernstein SocGen Group. Analyst Mark C. Newman cited a “significant beat and guide” alongside a “very strong pricing environment” in a research note. (Investing)
Sandisk’s call follows last week’s sharp upgrade to its outlook, with the company now forecasting fiscal third-quarter revenue between $4.4 billion and $4.8 billion, and adjusted EPS of $12 to $14—well above consensus estimates from LSEG. It also extended its flash-chip supply deal with Kioxia through 2034. Morgan Stanley noted the strong earnings momentum could continue “for as long as the AI trajectory remains this robust.” Sandisk surged roughly 160% in January, ranking it among the top S&P 500 performers alongside Seagate Technology and Micron Technology. Morningstar highlighted supply constraints expected to last at least until 2028. (Reuters)
Why it matters now: the market’s grappling with whether this marks a genuine cycle shift or merely a sharp squeeze in a narrow tech segment. Sandisk, which sells NAND flash—a memory type used in solid-state drives, cards, and other storage—is seeing fresh investment betting on AI data center demand instead of phones.
Some brokers are catching on late. Raymond James analyst Melissa Fairbanks raised Sandisk to “outperform,” dubbing it “one of the most delayed upgrades in history” and pegging a $725 price target, according to MarketWatch. (MarketWatch)
Short sellers are pulling back. As of Jan. 15, short interest fell to 7.1 million shares, a 19.3% drop from Dec. 31. That accounts for roughly 4.9% of the float sold short, according to MarketBeat. (MarketBeat)
Sandisk split from Western Digital and went independent in February 2025, starting to trade on Nasdaq as SNDK. (Sandisk)
Traders are now focused less on rhetoric and more on the numbers: can the company continue raising average selling prices while maintaining steady shipments of enterprise SSDs—the premium drives for data centers—without hitting supply constraints?
But the trade cuts both ways. Memory moves in cycles, and any quicker-than-expected supply jump, a drop in AI infrastructure spending, or just profit-taking after a big rally can slam a stock like this—hard, fast, and without a clear trigger.
All eyes turn to the macro front next, with the U.S. employment report dropping Feb. 6 at 8:30 a.m. ET. This number often moves rate expectations—and with them, sentiment toward high-flying tech stocks. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
