NEW YORK, Feb 26, 2026, 05:58 EST — Before the bell
- Sandisk shares climbed roughly 5% ahead of the bell, bouncing back after closing lower on Wednesday.
- SK hynix and Sandisk are pushing to set a standard for “High Bandwidth Flash,” technology targeted at AI inference systems.
- Citron’s Andrew Left and other bears argue the stock trades as if it’s immune to cycles, with pricing that suggests it’s already a clear winner.
Sandisk (SNDK) jumped roughly 5% ahead of the bell Thursday, outstripping lighter premarket moves in memory names like Micron, Seagate, and its onetime parent, Western Digital.
Sandisk’s stock has turned into a popular AI-storage play, drawing heavy interest but also sharper criticism. Short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research revealed his bearish bet, saying, “the market is pricing SanDisk like it’s $NVDA.” Left argued the company’s products are “a commodity” and warned of a likely competitive push from Samsung. Business Insider
Traders are left parsing out whether the uptick in flash memory demand marks an actual turning point or just another quick swing in this notoriously volatile slice of the semiconductor world. As a result, shares have been jumping on anything from product updates to partner announcements—even the slightest whiff of pricing leverage.
SK hynix announced late Wednesday that it’s teaming up with Sandisk to launch a consortium aimed at standardizing “HBF,” or High Bandwidth Flash. The idea: create a new memory tier to bridge the gap between high-speed HBM chips and SSD storage, specifically for AI inference—the stage where models are run, not trained. “By making HBF an industry standard… we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem,” the company said. Executive Ahn Hyun described the effort as a way “to optimize the entire ecosystem.” SK hynix Newsroom –
Sandisk took the wraps off its latest portable SSD range this week, targeting consumers dealing with hefty file sizes and content produced by AI. “This new generation of portable SSDs support customers across their storage needs,” said Heidi Arkinstall, the company’s vice president of consumer marketing, in the press release. Sandisk
The stock slid roughly 5% on Tuesday, hit by Citron’s short call making the rounds. Investors took a hard look at the argument: when capacity bounces back, tight supply and the pricing strength it brings could disappear fast.
Bulls are taking the opposite stance, keeping an eye out for signs that buyers are locking in longer-term supply. KC Rajkumar of Lynx Equity Strategies flagged in a note before Sandisk’s appearance at the Bernstein forum that “this cycle is unlike previous cycles.” He cited talks of multi-year, non-cancellable supply deals with major cloud players and said he’s comfortable seeing 2026 earnings per share in the $90 to $100 range. Investing.com Nigeria
Sandisk slipped 0.96% to close at $632.38 on Wednesday, positioning shares at a lower starting point for Thursday despite the early premarket uptick.
Another indicator of the stock’s momentum: insider filings are still coming in. Sandisk’s chief legal officer, Bernard Shek, reported in a Form 4 this week that he sold a modest batch of shares, transactions linked to tax withholding from vesting.
Sandisk makes flash storage using NAND, the type of memory that holds onto data without power, found in everything from solid-state drives to other gear. For investors, it’s become a kind of proxy for gauging if AI data center demand will keep driving storage and memory hardware sales higher.
The bear case isn’t hard to spot: memory markets run in cycles, and big jumps in prices usually lure new supply. Should Samsung or its peers fix production snags quicker than anticipated, or if demand from cloud players slows, Sandisk could lose its pricing edge. That would leave less support for the stock’s current valuation.
Next up, all eyes on whether premarket gains stick once the U.S. session starts. Then comes the next big test: fresh management remarks on demand and supply, set for the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom conference slot March 3.
