New York, Jan 6, 2026, 13:08 EST — Regular session
- Western Digital shares rose about 16% in early afternoon trading, tracking a broader jump in storage and memory stocks
- Investors pointed to CES chatter and renewed bets on AI-driven demand for data infrastructure
- Traders are watching Friday’s U.S. jobs report for clues on the Federal Reserve’s rate path
Western Digital shares jumped 15.8% to $217.54 in early afternoon trade on Tuesday, as investors piled back into data-storage names tied to AI infrastructure spending.
The move matters because storage and memory names have become a proxy for AI capital spending. Samsung co-CEO TM Roh called the current supply squeeze “unprecedented,” as makers divert capacity to high-bandwidth memory — specialized DRAM used in AI servers — and prices in some segments have more than doubled, TrendForce data show. Reuters
Buying picked up as Wall Street weighed a fresh round of CES headlines, with keynote speeches from AI executives drawing traders back into the theme. “Keynote addresses … had reinvigorated the AI trade,” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, said. Reuters
Peers also climbed sharply: Sandisk was up 23.6%, Seagate gained 11.4% and Micron added 6.9% in midday trade.
At CES, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang highlighted memory’s growing role in AI inference — running a trained model — and Nvidia outlined a new memory platform, MarketWatch reported. Sandisk, which split from Western Digital last year, also used the show to roll out an “Optimus” brand for its internal solid-state drives, the company said. MarketWatch+1
Western Digital’s last quarterly update set the backdrop for the rally. The company forecast fiscal second-quarter revenue of about $2.9 billion, plus or minus $100 million, and non-GAAP gross margin of 44% to 45%, after reporting 27% revenue growth in its fiscal first quarter.
But the storage trade has a history of abrupt reversals when supply catches up or large cloud customers pull back orders. Morningstar analyst William Kerwin warned in a note cited by Barron’s that the durability of recent price strength remains an open question.
Investors will next watch U.S. labor data, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics set to release the December employment report on Friday, Jan. 9, at 8:30 a.m. ET. A surprise in hiring or wages could reset rate expectations and shift risk appetite across high-momentum tech names, including Western Digital.
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