SanDisk and Western Digital Jump 6% as Traders Battle Over the AI Storage Stock Melt-Up

Shares of SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) are up 6% successful Friday greeting trading, changing hands adjacent $1,989, portion Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) banal up 6% to $561. The bid adds different limb to a furious AI retention melt-up that has lifted representation and disk-drive names into grounds territory.

SNDK banal has staged 1 of the astir utmost runs successful the U.S. marketplace this year, arsenic it's up 724% twelvemonth to day (YTD) and 4,638% implicit the past 12 months. WDC banal has gained 224% YTD and 902% implicit the past year, riding the aforesaid AI infrastructure tailwind that has pulled NAND and hard-disk thrust request higher.

The catalyst extends good beyond immoderate azygous headline. The marketplace is debating whether this is the aboriginal innings of a multi-year AI representation supercycle oregon a late-stage melt-up susceptible to a crisp reversal.

AI Storage Demand Fuels the Bid

The fundamentals down SanDisk's tally person been hard to dispute. The company's Q3 FY2026 results, reported April 30, delivered EPS of $23.41 versus a $14.66 statement and gross of $5.95 billion, up 251% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth (YoY). Furthermore, SanDisk's data-center conception gross jumped 645% YoY to $1.47 billion.

SanDisk guided Q4 FY2026 gross to $7.75 cardinal to $8.25 cardinal and non-GAAP EPS of $30 to $33. CEO David Goeckeler called the 4th "a cardinal inflection constituent for SanDisk" arsenic premix shifts toward datacenter customers nether multi-year proviso contracts.

Western Digital Rides the HDD Tailwind

Western Digital's ain Q3 FY2026 study delivered non-GAAP EPS of $2.72 against a $2.39 statement and gross of $3.34 billion, up 46% YoY. The company's non-GAAP gross borderline cleared 50% for the archetypal clip successful caller representation arsenic AI workloads tightened hard-disk thrust supply.

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Western Digital's absorption guided its Q4 FY2026 gross to astir $3.65 cardinal and non-GAAP EPS of $3.25, positive oregon minus $0.15. CEO Irving Tan stated that "virtually each AI workload, from training, inference, agentic AI to carnal AI, creates information that is stored persistently and cost-efficiently connected HDDs."