New York, Feb 27, 2026, 10:02 EST — Regular session
- Sandisk shares fell in early trading after Thursday’s rebound, keeping SNDK volatile into month-end.
- A new SK hynix-Sandisk push to standardize “High Bandwidth Flash” put AI-infrastructure memory back in focus.
- Traders are still weighing a fresh short call that argues the run has outrun the cycle.
Sandisk shares were down 1.4% at $642.73 in morning trade, after ending Thursday at $651.90. The stock has swung sharply this week, underscoring how quickly sentiment is turning in the AI-linked storage names. 1
The moves matter because Sandisk has become a crowded bet on flash-memory tightness tied to data centers, and it is now trading on narrative as much as numbers. The company, spun out of Western Digital about a year ago, has drawn both momentum buyers and skeptics in equal measure. 2
Late Wednesday, SK hynix and Sandisk said they had kicked off a joint effort under the Open Compute Project to standardize “High Bandwidth Flash” (HBF), which they described as a new layer between high-speed HBM (high-bandwidth memory) and SSDs (solid-state drives). SK hynix said it expects demand for complex memory solutions such as HBF to pick up around 2030, and one executive said the aim was to “optimize the entire ecosystem” for AI infrastructure. 3
Not everyone is buying the story at this price. Citron Research founder Andrew Left said this week his firm is short Sandisk, arguing the market is “pricing SanDisk like it’s $NVDA,” while warning the memory business is cyclical and that Samsung could tighten the screws once supply constraints ease. 4
Sandisk’s relative strength on Thursday stood out as chip-linked names sagged in a broader tech pullback, with peers such as Micron, Seagate and Western Digital under pressure even as Sandisk finished higher on the day. 5
The stock’s run has been fueled by Sandisk’s own upbeat tone around AI-driven data-center demand and tight supply, which helped drive a strong forecast last month and kept investor attention on pricing power in NAND flash, a type of storage chip used in SSDs. 6
Next up: Sandisk management is scheduled to appear at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on March 3, followed by the Cantor Global Technology & Industrial Growth Conference on March 11, according to a company notice. 7
But the near-term risk for bulls is straightforward: if NAND pricing momentum cools, or if AI infrastructure spending shifts even a little, the stock’s premium could deflate fast. Standard-setting workstreams can also take time to turn into orders.
For now, traders will watch whether Friday’s pullback turns into another air pocket, and whether Sandisk uses the March conference circuit to put firmer numbers around demand, supply and the path from “HBF” talk to revenue.
