A single Wall Street note just pushed a stock that already trades near $1,900 even higher. On Tuesday, Sept. 22, Rosenblatt Securities started covering SanDisk with a Buy rating and a $2,400 price target, and the memory stocks rally spread across the whole group — while the S&P 500 barely moved.
SanDisk closed up about 6.8%. Micron gained 5%. Seagate, Western Digital and SK Hynix’s U.S.-listed shares all rose between roughly 3.5% and 5%. The Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, notched its second straight record close.
Here’s what’s driving the memory stocks rally, why analysts now call a once-boring flash chip a key AI part, and what could still go wrong before Micron reports earnings next week.
The Memory Stocks Rally, By the Numbers
Start with the scoreboard. According to TradingKey’s closing recap, SanDisk (SNDK) rose 6.82%, Micron (MU) gained 5.00%, Seagate (STX) added 4.85%, Western Digital (WDC) climbed 3.67% and SK Hynix’s U.S. shares (SKHY) rose 3.45%.
Early in the session, the moves looked smaller. 24/7 Wall St. had Micron up about 3% in morning trading, and Invezz reported Micron and SK Hynix each up “more than 3%.” The gains grew into the close, which is why you’ll see different numbers in different headlines.
The Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) ended up about 3.3%, per 24/7 Wall St.’s market data. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF was basically flat. So this was a sector bet, not a broad risk-on day.
The wider market was mixed. The Nasdaq rose 0.45% to 27,244.28, a record close. The S&P 500 finished essentially unchanged at 7,764.64. The Dow fell 0.36% to 51,863.69.
That came one day after the Nasdaq jumped 2.26% to a record 27,122.09 on Monday — its first record in about four months. That day, Meta’s viral Muse AI agent and AMD’s move past a $1 trillion market value lit up tech. (We covered that milestone in AMD’s $1 trillion moment.)
Why Rosenblatt Slapped a $2,400 Target on SanDisk
Rosenblatt analyst Kevin Cassidy’s main argument is simple: AI is changing what NAND flash memory is worth.
For decades, NAND was a commodity. Phone and PC makers bought it on price, and the key number was cost per bit. Cassidy argues that AI computing platforms are moving NAND away from being just “a commodity storage medium” and closer to a core part of AI systems.
In a note quoted by Invezz, Cassidy said AI workloads increasingly prioritize “density, performance, endurance, and supply certainty” over the lowest price. His note also said putting NAND “closer to compute engines” can raise its value to the overall system.
He pointed to SanDisk’s BiCS8 and BiCS10 chip platforms, built with manufacturing partner Kioxia. According to 24/7 Wall St., Cassidy said those platforms reach higher storage density with fewer layers than some rivals. That could give SanDisk a cost and performance edge in enterprise storage built for AI.
The 65% number that matters most
The most important detail may not be the target at all. Cassidy flagged new business agreements SanDisk has signed with eight of its largest NAND customers. He estimates those deals could cover about 65% of fiscal 2028 production.
That matters because NAND has always been a boom-and-bust business. Prices spike, makers build too much capacity, and then prices crash. Locked-in customer volumes years out could help smooth that cycle — if the deals hold up.
Invezz calculated that the $2,400 target implies more than 35% upside from SanDisk’s Monday close of $1,766.64.
From Commodity to “Strategic”: The AI Storage Story
SanDisk’s own outlook backs up the bigger picture. On its August call, the company guided fiscal first-quarter 2027 revenue to $10.3 billion to $10.8 billion. It also estimated the NAND market will top $300 billion in calendar 2026, roughly triple the year before, according to 24/7 Wall St.
CEO David Goeckeler said at the time that customer demand is “growing faster than our supply.”
Micron is telling a similar story on the DRAM side. Stifel repeated its Buy rating and $1,500 price target on Micron this week, Invezz reported. The firm expects Micron’s results and guidance to beat consensus. It also expects the upside to be smaller than in recent quarters, because of supply deals with collar-based pricing and near-term shipment limits.
Stifel’s supply math is striking. It forecasts DRAM bit shipments growing 15% to 20% in calendar 2027. But it estimates supply would need to grow 40% to 50% or more to close the current shortage. Stifel also said HBM4 pricing per bit could potentially double as 2027 supply talks wrap up.
The OpenAI Factor: $278 Billion in Cash Burn
Why are investors suddenly comfortable paying up for AI hardware again? Part of the answer came from a Financial Times report, cited by Invezz, on OpenAI’s internal projections.
According to that report, OpenAI expects to burn through about $278 billion in cash between 2026 and 2030 as it spends heavily on computing power and infrastructure. The same report said OpenAI expects revenue to grow from $36 billion this year to $350 billion in 2030.
For memory makers, that’s the key takeaway. Every AI data center needs huge amounts of fast memory and storage. Spending projections like that suggest demand for the chips could stay high even as investors argue about an AI bubble.
Mizuho analyst Daniel O’Regan said the latest news around OpenAI and Anthropic should “reinforce expectations for sustained AI infrastructure spending.”
Other tailwinds helped. Oil prices hit two-week lows on hopes of U.S.-Iran diplomacy, and Invezz reported the 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.93%. Lower yields tend to help growth stocks. (For background on how rates hit tech, see our look at the Fed’s rate hike and AI stocks.)
Goldman’s “Worst May Be Over” Call, Two Weeks Later
Tuesday’s memory stocks rally didn’t come out of nowhere. On Sept. 9, Goldman Sachs told clients the worst of the memory sector’s summer slump may be over, according to 24/7 Wall St.
Goldman noted that Micron and SanDisk were breaking out of their summer downtrends. It said hedge fund positioning was still light, and chip-stock volatility had dropped well below its July peak. In plain English: plenty of big investors were underweight, and that left room for them to buy back in.
But Goldman also added a caution. Memory prices, new capacity and consumer spending can turn quickly. A chart breakout, the firm said, still needs earnings behind it.
There was a pricing warning the same day, too. Kioxia CEO Hiroo Ota told Bloomberg that “prices have already risen enough.” According to Bloomberg, Kioxia’s average NAND price jumped 70% in the June quarter versus the prior three months.
Micron Earnings Sept. 30: The Memory Stocks Rally’s Next Test
The next big test is one week away. Micron’s investor relations site confirms the company will hold its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 2:30 p.m. Mountain time (4:30 p.m. Eastern).
Expectations are sky-high. Micron previously guided fiscal fourth-quarter revenue to a record $50 billion at the midpoint, with non-GAAP earnings of $31 per share and an 86% gross margin, according to 24/7 Wall St.
Here’s what the memory stocks rally will be riding on:
- Guidance, not just results. Stifel already expects a beat. The market will care more about the outlook for the November quarter and beyond.
- HBM pricing for 2027. Any update on high-bandwidth memory contracts could confirm — or cool — Stifel’s “pricing could double” view.
- Supply discipline. Watch for signs that Micron or rivals are adding capacity faster than demand. That’s how every past memory boom ended.
- Read-through to SanDisk. Micron also sells NAND. Its comments on flash pricing will move SanDisk, Western Digital and Seagate.
Can the Memory Stocks Rally Survive the Boom-Bust Cycle?
Now the part the bulls don’t love. Memory is one of the most cyclical industries on Earth, and these stocks have already moved a lot.
How much depends on who you ask. 24/7 Wall St. put SanDisk’s year-to-date gain at roughly 677%. Invezz said “more than 540%” this year and more than 1,600% over the past 12 months. Either way, a lot of good news is already baked in.
This summer showed how fast things can flip. In July, 24/7 Wall St. reported a string of sharp drops, including an 11% one-day slide in SanDisk on supply-glut fears. In August, rising Treasury yields knocked Micron, SanDisk and Western Digital down 5% to 7% in a day.
Even Cassidy doesn’t hide the risks. He named execution problems and the chance that NAND slides back to commodity-style pricing as the key threats to his bull case.
For everyday investors, the lesson is simple. A $2,400 target is one analyst’s view, not a promise. Big run-ups in cyclical stocks can reverse sharply, often right around earnings.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Do your own research or talk to a licensed financial adviser before buying or selling any stock.
The Takeaway
The memory stocks rally is being powered by a new idea: that AI has turned NAND and DRAM from cheap commodities into must-have AI infrastructure. Rosenblatt’s $2,400 SanDisk target, locked-in customer deals covering an estimated 65% of fiscal 2028 production, and OpenAI’s huge compute plans all support that story.
But the real verdict comes Sept. 30, when Micron reports. If guidance and pricing hold, the bull case gets stronger. If they wobble, this famously boom-and-bust sector could remind everyone why it earned that reputation.
Want more? Follow USA One News for daily market moves, explained in plain English — and check back after Micron’s report for our full breakdown.
