Goldman Named The Issue That’s Pushing SanDisk Stock to the Moon

By John Seetoo Published Feb 9, 6:05AM EST

Quick Read

SanDisk stock jumped 1,561% in 12 months driven by severe HBM shortages for AI infrastructure.
Q2 revenues hit $3B (up 61% YoY) with earnings of $6.20 per share (5x increase).
HBM supply shortages are not expected to ease until 2028 at the earliest.

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Goldman Named The Issue That’s Pushing SanDisk Stock to the Moon — © bestbuy.com

One of the things that get overlooked when a new disruptive paradigm is introduced into an industry is infrastructure. For example:

When Tesla and its competitors in the EV sector started marketing their electric powered vehicles, one of the big drawbacks was the lack of recharging stations. Tesla’s inclusion of multiple charging station construction in its business plan not only gave it the necessary boost needed to validate its products, but it validated the entire EV industry as well.
The adoption and proliferation of streaming video and audio for gaming and other entertainment when first launched was delayed over the lack of consistent broadband availability. Once broadband proliferated, Netflix went from being a DVD rental house to a streaming video powerhouse, with Amazon Prime and other competitors to follow on its heels.

In the case of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Dave Lee of Bloomberg Opinion insightfully noted that the AI boom is going to wind up costing everyone to pay for it, regardless of their level of interest. This will be the result of rising utility bills from data center strains on the power grid and to subsequent rising costs on practically all electronic devices: smartphones, laptops, televisions, et al. – due to the drastic shortage of high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Without HBM, AI is essentially useless for any practical purposes. Goldman Sachs referred to it in December, 2025 as “the great memory crunch” and cited Nintendo as a potential near-term HBM shortfall casualty.

On the other hand, those companies involved with the design and manufacture of HBM have seen enormous stock price upside in the past year. Among the standout success stories resulting from this shortage of HBM has been SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK | SNDK Price Prediction).

NAND More Valuable Than Gold?

SD cards are a popular NAND flash memory configuration for portable devices.

The two primary configurations for HBM are DRAM, which is a chip used in computers, and NAND Flash, which is in the form of floating gate transistors stored in solid state drives, USB drives, SD cards, and installed in smartphones and digital cameras. SanDisk is presently the fifth largest NAND manufacturer in the industry. AI data centers have been stocking up on flash-based storage solutions, which has led to a gigantic increase in prices. While gold has increased over +72% in the last 12 months, SanDisk stock has gone from $36 to $598 at the time of this writing (with a high of $725) in the same period for an astonishing +1,561%.

Sandisk’s fiscal Q2 2026 revenues, which ended on January 2, 2026, reported over $3 billion, a year-over-year increase of +61%. Earnings were $6.20 per share, a 5-fold increase. SanDisk’s Q3 guidance is projecting $4.6 billion, a +172% year-over-year gain, with a $13 per share bottom line. Considering last year’s loss of -$0.30 per share, this is a tremendous turnaround.

Analysts estimate earnings for SanDisk will amount to about $39.45 per share.

HBM Demand Dwarfs Supply

AI’s insatiable hunger for HBM chips will impact prices and availability for smart TVs, set-top boxes, home routers, budget tablets, smartphones, and PCs in the near future.

As a real-world example of how dramatic HBM memory prices have escalated, take SanDisk rival Crucial Pro. Its 64GB DDR5 RAM kit went from $145 as recently as October, 2025 to $790 in February, 2026.

AI Centers are one of the hungriest consumers of HBM, and have scarfed up much of the available production. Industry insiders see the demand continuing to grow for over the next decade and beyond. A recent article in Nikkei Asia, stated that entry-level consumer electronics devices, such as smart TVs, set-top boxes, home routers, budget tablets, smartphones, and PCs, will be among the hardest-hit segments. Additionally, both conventional vehicles as well as EV will also be affected, since they need longer verification cycles.

While increased production is inevitable, the current shortage is not expected to see much of a dent until 2028 at the earliest. As a result, prices on practically all of the aforementioned electronic devices are expected to escalate in upcoming months. One manufacturer even disclosed that their ratio of memory chips in their overall materials cost has jumped from 15% to roughly 40%.

Samsung, Micron, and other HBM manufacturers have established protocols and reviews to prevent HBM hoarding. It will take a long time for supply to start meeting current and future demand. Bearing this in mind, at SanDisk’s current earnings rate, a 26x earnings multiple, which is on par for most tech stocks in the Nasdaq-100 would fairly value SanDisk at over $1,900 per share. It might appear that SanDisk may be an AI play that offers a bit more protection from volatility than a pure AI stock.

About the Author John Seetoo →

After 15 years on Wall Street with 7 of them as Director of Corporate and Municipal Bond Trading for a NYSE member firm, I started my own project and corporate finance consultancy. Much of the work involves writing business plans, presentations, white papers and marketing materials for companies seeking budgetary allocations for spinoffs and new initiatives or for raising capital for expansion or startup companies and entrepreneurs. On financial topics, I have been published under my own byline at The Motley Fool, a673b.bigscoots-temp.com, DealFlow Events’ Healthcare Services Investment Newsletter and The Microcap Newsletter, among others. Additionally, I have done freelance ghostwriting writing and editing for several financial websites, such as Seeking Alpha and Shmoop Financial. I have also written and been published on a variety of other topics from music, audiophile sound and film to musical instrument history, martial arts, and current events. Publications include Copper Magazine, Fidelity (Germany), Blasting News, Inside Kung-Fu, and other periodicals.