New York, February 26, 2026, 16:28 EST — After-hours
- Sandisk ended Thursday’s session up 2.4%, capping off a choppy week for memory-linked stocks.
- SK hynix and Sandisk kicked off a push to standardize “High Bandwidth Flash” aimed at AI inference systems.
- Sandisk saw a director move to sell 3,500 shares, and Citron Research revealed it’s holding a short position.
Sandisk Corp (SNDK) climbed 2.4% Thursday, closing at $651.86 after bouncing from $645.88 up to $691.50 during the session. The flash-memory manufacturer carries a market value near $43 billion.
Chip stocks saw a bumpy ride, as traders stayed alert for any signals on the direction of memory prices. Barron’s noted that Micron, Seagate, and Western Digital all slipped during the session. 1
Why it matters now: Sandisk now trades like a levered bet on NAND, the flash memory essential for solid-state drives, as demand from AI data centers keeps squeezing supply and pushing prices higher. Shares have skyrocketed roughly 1,271% since the company’s spin-off from Western Digital in February 2025, MarketWatch reports. 2
SK hynix and Sandisk have kicked off a new collaboration, holding the launch event at Sandisk’s Milpitas, California headquarters. The joint project falls under the Open Compute Project, which focuses on open standards for data centers. SK hynix said their goal: standardize “High Bandwidth Flash” (HBF), a new technology slotting between high-bandwidth memory (HBM—the ultra-fast chips used in AI accelerators) and traditional SSDs. The main target for HBF? AI inference workloads—running models in the real world, not training them. 3
Sandisk rolled out an updated portable SSD range this week, targeting users working with bigger files and “AI-developed content.” The Extreme Portable SSD hits shelves first, with more models set to follow later this year. “This new generation of portable SSDs support customers across their storage needs,” said Heidi Arkinstall, Sandisk’s vice president of consumer marketing, in the company’s statement. 4
The surge hasn’t convinced everyone. Citron Research’s Andrew Left disclosed a short position in Sandisk, saying on X: “The market is pricing SanDisk like it’s $NVDA.” Left contends investors are treating the company as if it’s a dominant tech name, rather than the cyclical memory player it is, subject to swings in supply and pricing. 5
Traders had more to digest after a fresh U.S. securities filing surfaced. Director Miyuki Suzuki put in a Form 144, signaling plans to offload 3,500 Sandisk shares—roughly $2.2 million in market value—via Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. 6
At this point, the immediate focus stays on demand—specifically, if AI spending keeps steady as activity moves from model-building to large-scale deployment. Supply is the other wild card: can new entrants move fast enough to push prices down? Sandisk’s float is in flux and the headlines haven’t let up, so even minor news has been enough to jolt the stock.
Sandisk’s turn at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference is next on the calendar—March 3, per the company’s investor event schedule. Investors will be watching for updates on memory demand and any insights into the HBF initiative. 7
