NEW YORK, April 13, 2026, 11:12 EDT
Sandisk shares shot up 7.2% to $912.82 in late-morning New York trading Monday, following news the company will join the Nasdaq-100 before markets open April 20, replacing Atlassian. The stock’s jump outpaced the 0.2% rise in the Invesco QQQ ETF.
This move matters: the Nasdaq-100, which tracks 100 top non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq, is a major reference point for index funds and ETFs. Nasdaq puts the number of products tied to the gauge at more than 200, collectively overseeing upwards of $600 billion in assets. As Reuters pointed out last month, inclusion in a blue-chip index like this can broaden a firm’s shareholder reach and help boost liquidity in the long run.
AI-fueled demand is still driving gains in storage and memory shares. Sandisk, which produces NAND flash chips for solid-state drives, hasn’t escaped the effects. In January, CEO David Goeckeler told Reuters, “Customers prefer supply over price,” as AI-focused buyers rushed to secure storage contracts. Reuters
Sandisk returned to public trading in February 2025 after cutting ties with Western Digital. The company, which in January beat Wall Street expectations with its revenue and profit outlook, credited a jump in demand tied to AI data storage.
Analysts are piling in. Last week, Bernstein’s Mark Newman said the market is “significantly undervaluing earnings power and sustainability of this cycle,” referencing a Dow Jones/MarketWatch piece that Morningstar picked up. Morningstar, Inc.
It’s not just Sandisk catching the tailwind. Back in January, Reuters flagged Western Digital, Seagate, and Micron as winners too, as investors piled into memory and storage names benefiting from AI-fueled data center demand—and a tightening memory chip supply.
None of this is unfamiliar. Memory’s a wild sector—prices and supply snap back and forth, as Reuters reminded readers in January. A dip in AI infrastructure demand or a slide in NAND could swiftly take the air out of this index-driven rally.
Nasdaq’s rebalancing takes effect before the bell on April 20, and for now, the current Nasdaq-100 rules stay in place through month’s end. The fresh rulebook arrives May 1, aimed at letting big new additions join faster.
