TLDR
- SNDK hit a record high of $807.99 on Wednesday, jumping nearly 10% in a single session
- Bernstein raised its price target to a street-high $1,250, up from $1,000
- Analyst Mark Newman outlined a blue-sky scenario where SNDK could reach $3,000
- The stock has rallied roughly 2,000% over the past year on surging NAND prices and AI demand
- Q4 EPS estimate of $25.30 is well ahead of Wall Street’s $18.78 consensus
SanDisk has been one of the standout performers of 2026. After a near 10% jump on Wednesday that pushed the stock to a record high of $807.99, SNDK was holding firm near the $800 level in pre-market trading Thursday.
That move came as Bernstein analyst Mark Newman raised his price target on the stock to a street-high $1,250, up from $1,000, reiterating an Outperform rating and naming it his top short-term pick.
Newman’s bullish call is rooted in accelerating NAND flash prices. He estimates SanDisk will post adjusted EPS of $14.18 for its fiscal third quarter ending March, slightly above both the $13.99 consensus and the company’s own guidance range of $12–$14.
His fourth-quarter estimate is where things get interesting. Newman sees Q4 EPS hitting $25.30 — well ahead of the Street’s $18.78 — driven by a projected 40% sequential increase in average selling prices.
The stock has now surged around 2,000% over the past year, fueled by surging NAND prices and heavy demand from AI data centers. Even so, Newman argues Wall Street is still underpricing the company’s earnings power.
He notes SNDK currently trades at just 9x consensus forward earnings, below the 10–13x range it held during prior upcycles. On a price-to-earnings basis relative to the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, it sits at 0.5x versus a historical 0.8–1.0x.
Bernstein’s Blue-Sky Case: $3,000
In a more aggressive scenario, if NAND prices rise 75% in each of the next two quarters — versus the 55% and 40% in Bernstein’s base case — Newman sees June-quarter EPS reaching $40.53, translating to full-year fiscal 2027 EPS of $224.
That underpins a blue-sky valuation of $3,000, applying a 13x multiple in line with SanDisk’s historical peak-cycle range. That would represent roughly 280% upside from current levels.
The base case of $1,250 applies 11x to average earnings across fiscal years 2026–2029, which Newman pegs at $114 per share.
AI Demand and Supply Advantages
SanDisk’s enterprise SSDs are widely used in AI infrastructure, and management has confirmed its products are fully allocated well into 2026. That gives the company pricing power, even if input costs rise.
Morgan Stanley recently added SNDK as a top pick for the second half of the year, pointing to 61% revenue growth and what it sees as the start of a longer-term AI infrastructure demand cycle.
The stock did pull back roughly 19% earlier this year after Google unveiled TurboQuant, a memory-compression algorithm that spooked NAND investors. Newman pushed back on that, saying the technology targets high-bandwidth memory used in AI inference and has limited impact on NAND’s broader storage role.
Newman’s view is that NAND prices only started moving meaningfully six to seven months ago, and the industry remains structurally undersupplied.
Overall Wall Street sentiment sits at Moderate Buy, with 11 Buy ratings and 3 Holds over the past three months. The average price target of $771.54 sits just below current levels.
SanDisk is due to report fiscal Q3 results on April 30.
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