Sandisk Jumps 8%, Micron Gains 6%, SK Hynix Climbs 4% as Wall Street Hikes Price Targets on AI Memory Boom

David Moadel

Tue, August 4, 2026 at 5:52 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Quick Read

SanDisk's datacenter revenue surged 645% and Micron's jumped 346% YoY, helping to fuel today's 8% and 6% rallies after both stocks fell sharply last month.
RBC Capital initiated SK Hynix at Outperform with a $200 target as Seagate posted record fiscal 2026 free cash flow of $3.1 billion.
SanDisk and SK Hynix unveiled the first High Bandwidth Flash industry standard, a blueprint that could expand the AI memory addressable market across chip vendors.
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Memory and storage stocks are surging Tuesday morning, with SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) leading a broad rebound across the group. SanDisk stock is up 8% to $1,393. Micron Technology shares are up 6% to $880, and SK Hynix shares are climbing 4% to $148.

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The rally reaches well beyond the leaders. Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) shares are rising 3% to $542, Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) shares are advancing 1% to $842, and the Roundhill Memory ETF is up 5% to $54. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ 100 is layering a broad risk-on bid onto the semiconductor complex.

HBF Standard and SK Hynix Upgrades Fuel the Bid

The immediate catalyst is a joint announcement from SanDisk and SK Hynix. The two companies released the first industry standard for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF) through the Open Compute Project, an open UCIe-based blueprint that uses high-speed NAND flash to bridge fast-but-small HBM and slower, high-capacity SSDs. The framework could let AI memory hierarchies operate across multiple chip vendors, expanding the addressable market for flash suppliers.

Wall Street is stacking bullish calls on top of the news. RBC Capital's Srini Pajjuri initiated SK Hynix stock at an Outperform rating with a $200 price target, citing a memory upcycle through 2027. Stifel rates SK Hynix shares Buy with a $240 target, calling DRAM vital to AI hardware, while William Blair initiated at Outperform, noting tight supply has roughly tripled AI memory prices.

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The fundamentals back the bullish tone. Micron's most recent quarter delivered revenue of $41.46 billion, up 345.7% year over year (YoY), with non-GAAP gross margin of 84.9%. SanDisk's datacenter segment posted revenue of $1.47 billion, up 645% YoY, evidence that NAND flash is moving from commodity status to an AI-critical asset. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, commenting on the quarter, stated that "Micron's record fiscal Q3 financial results and even stronger outlook for Q4 reflect the strategic value of memory in the AI era."

Peers Follow the Move as the DRAM ETF Tracks the Group

Hard-drive makers are participating alongside the flash and DRAM names. Western Digital shares are advancing ahead of a widely anticipated earnings report, and Seagate stock is climbing after the company posted record fiscal 2026 free cash flow of $3.1 billion and guiding first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue to $4.1 billion. Both narratives feed the same theme, that AI workloads generate data which has to live somewhere.

The Roundhill Memory ETF is a clean way to watch the theme as a whole. Its top positions are Samsung Electronics at 25%, SK Hynix at 24.2%, and Micron at 23.8%, meaning three names drive most of the fund's price action. That concentration cuts both ways, offering leverage to the memory upcycle but leaving very little diversification within a narrow, single-theme portfolio.

The valuations paint a mixed picture. On a trailing 12-month basis, SanDisk trades at a P/E ratio of 47.77x, Micron at 19.74x, SK Hynix at 20.29x, Western Digital at 33.94x, Seagate at 64.15x, and the DRAM ETF at 24.22x. Overall, Micron and SK Hynix screen as comparatively reasonable versus the group given the earnings acceleration. Micron carries a consensus analyst target of $1,522.26, with 31 Buy ratings and 9 Strong Buys, while SanDisk's consensus sits at $2,217.77 with 15 Buys and 3 Strong Buys.

Oversold Bounce Meets a Real Catalyst

Today's rally reflects more than the news headlines. Memory names sold off hard last month, with Micron posting its worst month since 2005. SanDisk stock fell 26% over the past month heading into Tuesday, and Micron stock was down 15% over the same stretch. A meaningful portion of today's action is oversold-bounce mechanics and sector rotation, layered on top of the HBF headline.

The prediction markets are leaning in the same direction. Polymarket's intraday market on Micron shows a 90.5% probability of a higher close today, and the crowd assigns a 65.5% probability that Micron stock finishes August above $800. That reads as supportive, not euphoric, and it fits the pattern of a group climbing back from a genuine drawdown rather than sprinting into new blue-sky territory.

SanDisk and Western Digital are slated to report earnings August 5 after the close, pending official company confirmation. Investors can watch for whether today's gains hold into the close, look for follow-through analyst notes on SK Hynix and Micron, and stay tuned to see how tomorrow's earnings reshape the memory narrative for the fall. Given the group's high beta to AI capex spending, traders should consider keeping their position sizes modest heading into the earnings window.