NEW YORK, May 21, 2026, 15:07 (EDT)
- Sandisk shares rose about 10% in afternoon trade, extending a sharp AI-driven rally.
- Management told investors this week the flash-memory market could stay tight for longer.
- Citi lifted its price target to $2,025, while Western Digital and Micron also traded higher.
Sandisk Corp shares jumped about 10% on Thursday, pushing the flash-memory maker deeper into Wall Street’s AI trade after management told investors that supply of NAND flash — the memory used in solid-state drives and other storage devices — remains tight. The stock traded at $1,533.00 at 2:52 p.m. EDT, after touching $1,538.39 earlier in the session.
The move matters now because investors are treating storage as a more direct beneficiary of artificial-intelligence spending, not just a late-cycle hardware supplier. Sandisk sells products used across data centers, edge devices and consumer storage, with Reuters’ company profile describing it as a supplier of NAND-based drives, cards, USB products, wafers and components.
The latest spark came from Sandisk’s appearance at J.P. Morgan’s technology, media and communications conference on Wednesday. Sandisk had said its management would appear there on May 20, with later events scheduled at Bernstein and Mizuho.
Chief Executive David Goeckeler told investors the flash market would stay “undersupplied for a long period of time,” Barron’s reported. He also called past memory cyclicality “really corrosive,” while Chief Financial Officer Luis Visoso said customers were asking, “how can you ensure there will be supply?” Barron’s
Harlan Sur, J.P. Morgan’s semiconductor analyst, framed the demand shift more broadly, saying at the conference that storage technology is a “critical part” of AI as inferencing workloads become more memory- and storage-heavy. Seeking Alpha’s transcript listed Goeckeler and Visoso as Sandisk participants at the May 20 event. Seeking Alpha
Analysts have chased the stock higher. Citi analyst Asiya Merchant raised her target on Sandisk to $2,025 from $1,300 and kept a Buy rating, Barron’s reported, citing demand for enterprise solid-state drives, or fast server storage used in AI data centers. The report said 20 of 26 analysts tracked by FactSet rated the shares Buy.
Sandisk’s own results gave bulls more to work with. The company reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $5.95 billion, up 97% sequentially, and GAAP net income of $3.62 billion, or $23.03 per diluted share, helped by a mix shift toward higher-value customers and datacenter demand.
The rally was not isolated. Western Digital, Sandisk’s former parent and a storage peer, rose 4.5%, while Micron Technology gained 2.4%, showing investors were still buying the broader memory and storage group.
The gains also outpaced the wider tape. Reuters’ market data showed the Nasdaq Composite up 0.07% and the S&P 500 up 0.15%, leaving Sandisk’s move as a stock-specific response to the supply and AI demand story rather than just a broad tech rally.
There is a risk in that same setup. Memory markets have a long history of shortages turning into gluts when customers slow orders or suppliers add capacity, and Sandisk’s valuation now leaves less room for a demand wobble. A delay in AI data-center spending, looser supply, or weaker pricing on long-term contracts could hit the shares hard.
For now, the market is paying for scarcity. Sandisk’s stock action says investors believe AI has changed the old storage cycle, at least for the moment.
