SanDisk Corporation shares opened lower in pre-market trade, sliding roughly 5.1% as selling spread through the global memory-chip complex. The immediate catalyst was a heavy drop in South Korea, where SK Hynix posted its largest one-day decline in nearly 20 years in Seoul.
Market participants pointed to profit-taking tied to SK Hynix’s high-profile Nasdaq debut last Friday, which, together with a Korean brokerage forecast that SK Hynix’s second-quarter operating profit would come in about 8% below consensus, soured investor sentiment for memory-focused names. That knock-on effect produced a sympathy move in SanDisk stock during pre-market hours.
Analyst views remain split from intraday price action. Goldman Sachs provided a prominent bullish counterweight, raising its SanDisk price target from $1,200 to $2,200 and reiterating a Buy rating. The firm’s analyst, James Schneider, models 2026 adjusted EPS about 30% above the Wall Street consensus and expects a "very strong" fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 report when the company reports in August. Evercore ISI has also held an Outperform rating with a $3,100 target, pointing to roughly $62 billion in minimum committed revenue from New Business Model agreements as support for the longer-term bull case.
Still, the macro picture intensified the downward pressure. Renewed US-Iran military strikes in and around the Strait of Hormuz unsettled global risk appetite overnight. Iran declared the waterway closed and oil prices jumped sharply, a development that weighed on Nasdaq futures and amplified selling in high-beta growth names. In turn, SanDisk’s pullback tracked similar declines in sector peers during pre-market trade - with Micron and Western Digital also showing sharp moves lower - underscoring that the weakness was broad-based across the memory segment rather than isolated to a single company.
Technically, a mix of competitor-driven sentiment, elevated valuation concerns after SanDisk’s exceptional year-to-date advance, and the geopolitically unsettled environment pushed the stock down from the prior session level of $1,915.92. Shares reached a session low near $1,773 before recovering some ground.
Despite the price action, the underlying fundamental case cited by bullish analysts remains: NAND supply is tight and AI-driven demand is robust, a backdrop that analysts say supports the company’s fundamentals as it heads into the August earnings announcement.
What to watch next
- SanDisk’s August fiscal fourth-quarter report and guidance, which analysts have flagged as potentially strong.
- Any follow-through in memory-chip names after the SK Hynix shock and additional broker commentary on second-quarter results.
- Geopolitical developments around the Strait of Hormuz and movements in oil prices that could continue to influence risk appetite for growth and high-beta technology stocks.