NEW YORK, May 21, 2026, 15:07 (EDT)
- Sandisk shares were up around 10% in afternoon trading, holding their AI-powered rally.
- Management told investors this week the flash-memory market could remain tight for longer.
- Citi lifted its price target to $2,025. Shares of Western Digital and Micron also gained.
Sandisk Corp jumped about 10% on Thursday, moving with other AI stocks. The company said NAND flash supply remains tight. The stock was last seen at $1,533.00 at 2:52 p.m. EDT, after reaching $1,538.39 earlier in the session.
Storage stocks have started to get more attention, with investors now seeing them as a main play on artificial-intelligence spending instead of lumping them in with other hardware names. Sandisk sells NAND-based drives, cards, USB sticks, wafers and more for data centers, edge, and consumer storage, according to Reuters‘ company profile.
Sandisk drew attention after its management appeared at J.P. Morgan’s tech, media and communications conference on Wednesday. The company had earlier flagged May 20 for that event. More investor conferences with Bernstein and Mizuho are also set.
David Goeckeler, chief executive, told investors the flash market will probably stay “undersupplied for a long period of time,” according to Barron’s. He called older memory cycles “really corrosive.” CFO Luis Visoso said customers now want to know, “how can you ensure there will be supply?” Barron’s
J.P. Morgan semiconductor analyst Harlan Sur said at the conference that storage tech is “a critical part” of AI, since inferencing uses up more memory and storage. According to a Seeking Alpha transcript, Goeckeler and Visoso spoke on behalf of Sandisk at the May 20 event. Seeking Alpha
Sandisk is seeing more price target hikes from analysts after its latest rally. Citi’s Asiya Merchant raised her target to $2,025, up from $1,300, and stuck with a Buy, Barron’s reported, citing stronger demand for Sandisk’s enterprise solid-state drives in AI data centers. FactSet data shows 20 of 26 analysts covering the stock have a Buy, the report said.
Sandisk stockholders saw some strong numbers in the latest quarter. The storage company reported third-quarter revenue of $5.95 billion, a 97% jump from the previous quarter. GAAP net income reached $3.62 billion, or $23.03 per diluted share. Sandisk credited the gains to higher-value customers and heavier datacenter demand.
Western Digital climbed 4.5%. It once owned Sandisk. Micron Technology added 2.4%. Buying wasn’t limited to a single stock—traders looked for gains across memory and storage.
Sandisk traded more actively than the main indexes. The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.07%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.15%, Reuters data showed. Moves in Sandisk seem linked to supply and AI demand updates rather than a broad tech rally.
Risks remain with that approach. Memory markets have flipped from tight supply to oversupply in the past, often when orders slow or suppliers add too much capacity. Sandisk trades on a valuation that leaves little room for a drop in demand. The stock could fall if AI data-center demand slows, supply increases, or contract prices weaken.
Pinned to scarcity, prices are moving. Sandisk shares tell the market that AI has thrown off the typical storage cycle, for the moment.
