Sandisk shares drop 18% last week as China CXMT DRAM scare hits NAND peers, valuation falls to 6x forward earnings

Sandisk slides 17.9% as CXMT's DRAM roadmap spooks NAND peers

Sandisk (SNDK) shares fell 17.86% last week, from $1,582 at the October 9 close to $1,299.30 on Friday, October 16, 2026, according to a Monday analysis that framed the move as a reaction to China's CXMT saying it would launch denser server memory by year-end. Selling continued as rate-hike worries weighed on AI hardware names. The Yahoo Finance and TIKR pieces note that CXMT makes DRAM, the working memory inside servers, while Sandisk makes NAND flash storage, and that Sandisk fell harder than Micron, the U.S. company CXMT actually competes with.

Three sessions drove about 95% of the $283 weekly drop

The same analysis attributes roughly 95% of the weekly decline to three sessions: Monday, October 12 (down about 6%) after CXMT President Cao Kanyu told a Shanghai chip conference the firm would release server DDR5 built on a 4F² cell design by the end of 2026, a design that can cut cell area by about 33% versus today's standard; Wednesday, October 14 (down about 5%) after hot inflation data lifted bets on another Fed rate hike; and Friday, October 16 (down about 7%), when memory stocks kept falling even after Goldman Sachs told clients the CXMT fears were overdone and that Sandisk's flash storage was less exposed than AI memory makers. Micron fell nearly 4% on October 12, while Samsung and SK Hynix each dropped more than 7% in their next Seoul session. Tuesday and Thursday each took off less than 1%, and Western Digital, which makes hard drives, also fell.

Valuation compresses to 6x forward earnings, below the one-year average

The same report notes Sandisk trades at 6.05x next-twelve-month normalized earnings, about half its one-year mean of 11.68x and close to the 5.57x low set in August, putting the multiple about 48% below its one-year average. Insider Monkey's separate write-up on Monday likewise frames the stock as trading near 6x forward earnings and asks whether a peak is already priced in. Bloomberg-cited traders cited by Insider Monkey said the move reflected fears that CXMT's chip-technology advance could pressure memory pricing.

Street targets sit 67% above Friday's close

Sandisk carried 17 buy ratings, 4 outperforms, 3 holds and 1 underperform as of Monday's tally, with a mean target of $2,173, roughly 67% above Friday's close, according to the same analysis. Twenty-four analyst targets ranged from $1,000 to $3,600. At the end of September, shares had closed at $1,740 with a $2,137 mean target, leaving the gap between price and target wider than in any snapshot of the past year. In July, the mean target sat only about 11% above the share price, and even the lowest target of $1,000 is only 23% below Friday's close.

Q1 fiscal report on October 29 framed as next test

Sandisk's August guidance pointed to fiscal Q1 revenue of $10.3 billion to $10.8 billion, non-GAAP EPS of $44 to $46 and non-GAAP gross margin of 83% to 85%; data-center revenue reached $2.98 billion in fiscal Q4, about one-third of the total. Annualizing the midpoint of the EPS guide puts Friday's price at roughly 7x that annualized non-GAAP EPS, the same report says. The piece flags Sandisk's fiscal Q1 results on October 29 as the next hard evidence point, with non-GAAP gross margin versus the 83%–85% guide and any commentary on December-quarter NAND pricing the key numbers to watch.

Separately, analysts reaffirm NAND outlook as shares rebound

In Monday morning trading, Sandisk shares rose about 7.5%, recovering from the prior week's 18% decline without fresh company announcements, according to StreetInsider. Mizuho kept its Outperform rating and $2,050 target, telling investors to use the pullback as a buying opportunity and saying NAND demand is growing from key-value caching and agentic AI applications while global supply outside China remains mostly flat, with NAND pricing expected to stay elevated through 2027. KeyBanc projected meaningful NAND price increases in the current quarter, and Goldman Sachs had previously called the prior week's sector decline an overreaction given the persistent technology gap in advanced-node NAND. Separately, a GuruFocus note on Monday tracked the 17.9% slide as part of a tech selloff tied to CPI concerns.