SanDisk stock swings after strong quarter, 8-for-1 split announced
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
Flash-memory maker SanDisk posted $11.03 billion in quarterly revenue and announced an eight-for-one stock split.
Its 350% year-to-date gain shows how jumpy memory-cycle bets can be.
Background
SanDisk is a flash memory and storage manufacturer (NAND chips and SSDs for data centers) that spun off from Western Digital in February 2025 and began trading at $52 a share. It has become one of the market's biggest winners as memory and storage emerged as bottlenecks in the AI infrastructure build-out, and it was the best performer in the S&P 500 since the start of 2026. Its gross margin climbed from 29.8% in the quarter ended October 3, 2025 to 85.0% a year later, with management saying higher pricing accounted for about 40% of the fiscal Q1 2027 revenue increase.
How it unfolded
- Feb 2025Western Digital spun off its flash memory unit, and SanDisk began trading as its own entity at $52 per share.
- May 7, 2025In fiscal Q3 2025 results, SanDisk said it had taken actions to reduce supply to match demand; revenue was 0.6% lower than a year earlier, with an operating margin of minus 2.5% excluding one-time charges.
- Sep 29, 2025SanDisk and partner Kioxia began operating Fab2 at their Kitakami Plant in Japan, saying the new fab would meet AI-driven demand.
- Aug 6, 2026SanDisk stock fell 5% after its fiscal first-quarter revenue guidance came in below analyst expectations.
- Aug 14, 2026The stock popped 6% on a Friday, extending a 13% rise in the prior session, as Wall Street cheered its bullish outlook.
- Oct 29, 2026SanDisk reported fiscal Q1 2027 revenue of $11.03 billion, beating the $10.7 billion estimate and up 23% sequentially, and announced an eight-for-one forward stock split.
- Nov 2, 2026The stock closed at $1,150.89, down 13.47%, despite basic EPS of $55.49; a cautious forecast from partner Kioxia also pulled memory stocks lower, and the stock was down 37.5% in the month to that date.
- Nov 3, 2026Midterm elections were held and investors digested the Democratic wave; SanDisk stock was up more than 350% year to date, with the 8-for-1 split set to trade split-adjusted on Nov. 20.
- Nov 4, 2026SanDisk stock was at $1,075.20, down 5% in morning trading while the Invesco QQQ Trust was up 2%; it remained up 353% year to date.
Key terms
- stock split
- A corporate action that increases the number of shares outstanding while proportionally lowering each share's price, leaving total market value unchanged.
- NAND chips
- A type of flash memory named after the NAND logic gate, used for non-volatile data storage.
- S&P 500
- A stock market index tracking the performance of 500 large US companies listed on American exchanges.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Bulls
- 24/7 Wall St.'s analyst desk rates SanDisk a BUY with a $1,458.63 price target, saying it now earns software-like margins and multi-year contracts give better revenue visibility.
- Caution
- The same desk says its model assumes the market will keep valuing peak-cycle memory earnings cautiously.
- Analysts
- RBC Capital says customer contracts are multi-year, detailed by quarter and month, have fixed pricing with a variable component, and are supported by financial guarantees.
- Bears
- TradingKey attributed the drop to post-earnings profit-taking and high valuation pressures, noting institutional analysts including RBC lowered price targets amid skepticism over hyperscaler AI storage capex returns.
- Expert
- Motley Fool's David Jagielski said stock splits bring down the share price but don't make a stock a better buy, and that the case hinges on the memory and storage market outlook.
Still unverified
Election results raised concerns about AI infrastructure spending, including fears that the Texas governor's race could lead to a data center moratorium in that state.