Micron stock rises 2%, SanDisk gains 3%: why memory stocks are moving again

Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) and SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) shares were back in favour again ahead of Friday’s opening bell, with the memory stocks rising 2% and 3%.

Micron gained 1.9% in premarket trading and SanDisk advanced 3% as Treasury yields eased ahead of the August jobs report.

Part of the rebound is macro relief. But the stronger argument sits underneath the move: DRAM and NAND pricing remains firm, AI infrastructure is consuming enormous amounts of memory, and analysts continue raising estimates.

Falling yields help, but memory demand never really broke

Lower bond yields matter because Micron and SanDisk increasingly trade like high-growth AI stocks. When yields rise, investors become less willing to pay premium multiples for future earnings.

Friday’s easing therefore removed pressure that hit semiconductors earlier in the week.

Yet the memory cycle remained strong. Barron’s reported that global DRAM revenue jumped 57% quarter on quarter in Q2, while NAND revenue surged 70%. Micron increased its DRAM market share to 24% and its NAND share to 15%.

Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh has argued that memory remains a “key bottleneck” across the semiconductor supply chain, according to The Fly.

The firm maintained an Outperform rating on Micron pointing to elevated aggregate DRAM demand.

Micron’s HBM bull case survived the latest AI-chip scare

One concern has been whether future AI accelerators could require less high-bandwidth memory per chip.

UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri argues that conclusion may be too simplistic.

MarketWatch reported that Arcuri believes Nvidia’s changes to future Rubin Ultra configurations could allow it to ship more accelerators. If each chip carries less memory but far more chips are produced, total HBM consumption can still rise.

UBS raised its forecast for HBM average selling-price growth to about 79% year on year from 67%, while pointing to stronger NAND conditions as server and storage SSD demand improves.

That matters for Micron. Its AI opportunity increasingly depends on memory consumed across entire data-centre systems, not solely the HBM capacity attached to each GPU.

Nvidia’s procurement supports that view, as the company disclosed $279 billion of supply and capacity commitments, primarily tied to memory and manufacturing, showing how important component availability remains.

SanDisk has an even clearer catalyst as NAND prices rise

SanDisk continues to receive strong support from Wall Street.

Bernstein analyst Mark Newman has maintained an Outperform rating and a $3,000 price target on the stock, after raising the target from $1,700 in late June.

Newman’s bullish case centres on SanDisk’s new long-term memory supply agreements, which feature stronger pricing protections and upfront customer commitments that Bernstein believes could reduce earnings downside when the NAND cycle eventually weakens.

Bernstein also raised its fiscal 2027 earnings estimates on stronger NAND average selling prices.

That gives SanDisk a direct fundamental catalyst. AI data centres require expanding amounts of storage, while constrained supply continues to give NAND producers stronger pricing power.

The risk is that those conditions eventually attract enough new capacity to loosen the market.

China is already gaining ground as YMTC’s global NAND share reached 14% in the second quarter from 9% a year earlier, while SanDisk’s slipped to 11% from 13%. CXMT also increased its DRAM share.