SanDisk leads memory peers higher without fresh company news
SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) stock climbed roughly 8% to about $1,686 in U.S. morning trading on September 4, extending a year-to-date gain of 555% through the prior session even though the company issued no new announcement. Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) added about 5% to $1,003.22 and Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) rose roughly 4% to $460.19, with the Roundhill Memory ETF (CBOE:DRAM) up 4% to $58.45 while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust was down 0.45% to $769.66. The move was described as a sector-wide cycle bid rather than a single-name squeeze.
August jobs print complicates the macro backdrop
The session unfolded against a stronger-than-expected U.S. labor report, with the Labor Department reporting 162,000 jobs added in August against a forecast of 65,000 and the unemployment rate holding at 4.1%. According to CME FedWatch, expectations for a September rate hike rose to 60.2% from 49.4% on Thursday, a setup that would normally weigh on long-duration growth names but left memory stocks rallying instead.
Earnings already in hand anchor the bid
SanDisk reported fiscal fourth-quarter results on August 5, posting revenue of $8.96 billion, up 371.6% year over year, with adjusted earnings of $39.25 per share against a consensus estimate of $33.28. GAAP gross margin reached 84.6%, described as reflecting genuine NAND pricing power on top of the volume ramp. For the full fiscal year, datacenter revenue rose 437% year over year. The company guided fiscal first-quarter revenue to $10.30 billion to $10.80 billion, above the quarter it had just reported, which the report read as evidence the pricing cycle had not yet rolled over as of the release.
Peer commentary reinforces tight supply
Micron flagged tight NAND and DRAM supply persisting beyond 2027, while Western Digital reported blended storage prices climbing in the high teens year over year. Prior-day coverage of SanDisk's results characterized Q4 revenue as surging 372% to about $8.97 billion with adjusted free cash flow of $5.04 billion, and said multi-year agreements now cover more than 50% of fiscal 2027 bits and about two-thirds of fiscal 2028 supply, with $93.9 billion in contracted revenue at floor prices. The same coverage described two-thirds of Q4 sequential revenue growth as price-driven, leaving earnings sensitive to any normalization.
Valuation context and forward read
SanDisk was described as trading at about 7.2x forward earnings, against a stated sector average of 22.4x, with EV/EBITDA near 5.6x against a sector average of 14.3x, while short interest stood at 5.24%. The lead report concluded that the last hard evidence still says NAND pricing is accelerating, and that the September 4 session did not add to that read beyond reinforcing the existing cycle thesis.
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