SanDisk Soars 9%, Western Digital Rallies 5%, Micron Rises 3% as Memory Trade Reawakens
Quick Read
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SanDisk (SNDK) stock surged 9% in midday trading with the stock up 3,852% over the past year, driven by Q3 revenue of $5.95B (up 251% YoY) and gross margins of 78%.
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Western Digital (WDC) stock rose 5%, with Q3 non-GAAP gross margin reaching 51% as HDDs capture persistent data storage for all AI workload types.
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Micron Technology (MU) stock advanced 3% as the company’s Cloud Memory Business Unit posted $5.284B in Q1 FY2026 revenue at 66% gross margin on strong HBM demand.
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Memory stocks are bouncing hard at midday on Thursday after a punishing week for the sector. SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) shares are up 9%, Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) stock is higher by 5%, and Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) shares are advancing 3%.
The rebound follows a brutal five sessions in which each of the three was down between 4% and 9%. SNDK stock had slipped 4% over the past week, WDC shares had dropped 7%, and MU stock had given back 9% heading in.
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The reversal is happening inside one of the hottest AI-themed corners of the market. SanDisk stock is up 3,852% over the past year, an extraordinary move tied to its NAND pure-play status after splitting from Western Digital in 2025.
Memory Trade Reawakens After Rough Week
The catalyst is partly mechanical. Each name had stretched lower into Wednesday’s close, and dip-buyers are stepping back in across the memory complex on a quieter macro tape, with SanDisk stock leading the move.
The fundamental backdrop remains the same story that has powered the group all year. High bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI accelerators has been the dominant catalyst for Micron, with the company’s Cloud Memory Business Unit posting $5.284 billion in Q1 FY2026 revenue at a 66% gross margin.
SanDisk’s Q3 FY2026 print on April 30 reset expectations for the NAND side, with revenue of $5.95 billion up 251% year over year and gross margin of 78%. CEO David Goeckeler called it “a fundamental inflection point for Sandisk” driven by datacenter mix shift.
Western Digital, the post-spinoff HDD pure-play, also crossed a milestone, with Q3 FY2026 non-GAAP gross margin reaching 51%. CEO Irving Tan asserted that “Virtually every AI workload, from training, inference, agentic AI to physical AI, creates data that is stored persistently and cost-efficiently on HDDs.”
