Sandisk soars to S&P’s best-performing stock this century as AI datacenter demand drives 1,600% post-IPO rally
Sandisk has become the S&P 500’s top-performing stock of this century after a post-IPO surge of about 1,600% since February 2025. The stock jumped after the company guided third-quarter earnings of $12–$14 per share, far above Wall Street’s $4.95 estimate. Sandisk is up roughly 160% year-to-date and trading above $600. Analysts rapidly raised price targets, citing unprecedented demand for NAND flash memory from AI datacenters. Notable upgrades include Susquehanna lifting its target to $1,000, Bank of America raising its target to $850, Raymond James setting $725, and Wedbush moving to $740. Market data show 2026 net earnings forecasts for Sandisk rose 11% in a week, and revenue projections climbed 20%. Despite the rally, Sandisk trades at roughly 15x expected earnings — cheaper than the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 and Nvidia — a valuation that some investors view as reasonable given the earnings surge. The shift from consumer-driven memory demand to AI datacenter consumption is cited as the structural driver of the stock’s rapid gains. The article notes that gains are uneven across memory peers, with Western Digital, Micron and Seagate showing mixed moves. Disclaimers emphasize this is not trading advice.
Neutral
Direct implications for the cryptocurrency market are limited because Sandisk is a semiconductor/storage company driven by enterprise AI demand rather than crypto-specific adoption. However, there are indirect trading consequences: a strong semiconductor/storage rally tied to AI datacenter buildout can boost risk appetite and equities flows into tech and infrastructure suppliers, which may correlate with higher crypto risk-on trading in the short term. Conversely, concentration of capital into AI hardware could divert some institutional liquidity away from crypto. Historically, large tech rallies (e.g., cloud/AI cycles) have coincided with broader risk-on momentum that benefits crypto markets, but the effect is not deterministic. Short-term: likely positive correlation with risk assets—crypto traders may see some price uplift amid risk-on sentiment. Volatility could increase as traders rotate funds between AI equities and crypto. Long-term: structural shift toward AI datacenter demand supports sustained investment in data infrastructure; unless storage firms directly integrate crypto-specific workloads, the long-term impact on crypto fundamentals is limited. On balance, the news signals broader tech/AI optimism (mildly supportive for risk assets including crypto) but does not directly alter crypto market fundamentals, so the categorical view is neutral.