Sandisk Corporation shares jumped 8.6% through 10:25 a.m. ET Tuesday, a sharp intraday move that traders said reflected brighter sentiment for semiconductor stocks after fresh analyst optimism.
The uptick followed a Tuesday morning note from Mizuho that reiterated an outperform rating and a $800 price target on Micron, and projected the memory market will remain 30% to 50% undersupplied throughout 2026 and 2027 — a forecast that traders quickly tied to demand for high-bandwidth memory and flash.
Those supply worries colliding with robust corporate results help explain why traders watching sndk stock price pushed it higher: Sandisk reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $5.9 billion for the quarter ended April 3 and net income of $3.6 billion, or $23.03 per share. Gross margin surged to 78.4% from 50.9% in the prior quarter, and the company told investors to expect fiscal fourth-quarter revenue between $7.75 billion and $8.25 billion.
The market has already priced a dramatic recovery into Sandisk. One note put the stock at about $1,480 and said the shares had risen roughly 520% in 2025 as of May 22, and had climbed almost 4,100% from the company's February 2025 IPO price of about $36 per share.
Analysts and commentators seized on the arithmetic. A Motley Fool piece cited Sandisk trading at 50 times earnings, versus 35 times earnings for Micron; other coverage calculated a forward price-to-earnings ratio nearer 23 times, up from 13 at the end of the first quarter — numbers that underline how much future growth the market is assigning to Sandisk's business.
Mizuho's projection of persistent undersupply is specific about where the pressure will show up. The bank said the price of high-bandwidth memory could surge 70% to 100% next year and noted rising demand for Sandisk's High Bandwidth Flash, or HBF, as an alternative to Micron's high-bandwidth memory, HBM. Mizuho was talking about rising demand for HBF just last week and also predicted that increased HBF demand will cause NAND supply to contract in 2027.
The contrast between Sandisk and Micron is direct and material: Sandisk only makes NAND flash memory, while Micron makes both DRAM chips and NAND. That product mix means Sandisk stands to gain disproportionately if NAND tightness arrives — but it also concentrates the company’s exposure to one corner of the market.
“Sandisk stock is going up, but Micron stock is cheaper,” Rich Smith wrote, capturing the tension investors are weighing: Sandisk’s shares now reflect a bet on sustained HBF demand and on Mizuho’s undersupply scenario, while Micron trades at a lower multiple despite the same bullish supply outlook for memory overall.
That tension is the story beneath the headline move. Sandisk's recent quarter gives the company undeniable momentum — big revenue, outsized profit and a dramatic rise in gross margin — and Mizuho’s forecast supplies a plausible mechanism that would tighten NAND and lift prices. But the stock’s steep run and elevated multiples leave little room for disappointment if demand or supply dynamics change.
What happens next will depend on whether the memory market evolves as Mizuho predicts. If HBF demand continues to climb and NAND inventories tighten into 2027, the premium valuation baked into Sandisk’s shares will look prescient. If supply proves less constrained or demand softens, the stretched valuation could reverse quickly. For investors tracking sndk stock price, Tuesday’s 8.6% jump is a reminder that the rally now rests on a specific case about HBF-driven tightness, not just on broad sector sentiment.
