Sandisk Corp

Sandisk reported fiscal Q4 2026 revenue of $8,965 million, up 372% from a year earlier, with gross margin of 84.6%, and guided fiscal Q1 2027 revenue to $10.30 billion to $10.80 billion with non-GAAP earnings per share of $44.00 to $46.00. Datacenter revenue reached $2,977 million in the quarter, up 103% sequentially, and $5,153 million for fiscal 2026, up 437%, while edge revenue was $5,432 million for the quarter, up 48% sequentially. Since its April earnings call, the company has signed five more agreements under its New Business Model, three with new customers and two expanding earlier deals, and it backs out $2,476 million tied to prepayments and deposits under these agreements when calculating adjusted free cash flow for fiscal 2026. The board approved another $14 billion in buybacks, bringing the remaining authorization to $15.5 billion. The stock trades at 7.75 times forward earnings as of October 6, against a sector P/E of 23.74, even as analysts expect EPS growth of 23.72% in 2027; about two-thirds of fiscal Q4 sequential growth came from higher prices and one-third from higher volume, and consumer revenue fell 32% from the prior quarter.

Lynx Equity Strategies analyst KC Rajkumar expects the AI semiconductor rally to extend into year-end, with Nvidia, Micron Technology and Sandisk among the names leading the move. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index pulled back modestly Wednesday after four consecutive sessions of gains, but Rajkumar said the broader rally that began after the Federal Reserve's Sept. 15 meeting remains intact, with AI semiconductor stocks bought in waves as the sector shrugs off higher bond yields. Micron was the latest beneficiary, rising roughly 4% Wednesday despite a weaker broader market, after breaking out of its trading range in early September. On memory pricing, Samsung reported preliminary third-quarter operating profit up roughly ninefold year over year and Micron's August-quarter operating profit rose about 11%, while Micron management said supply-demand conditions in fiscal 2027 and 2028 should be significantly tighter than in fiscal 2026. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported third-quarter revenue growth of 51% year over year, above the high end of its guidance, which Rajkumar said could push TSMC's 2026 revenue growth from its guidance of slightly above 40% to at least the mid-40% range. Rajkumar added that AI semiconductors are emerging from a period of investor skepticism and are no longer the crowded trade they were several months ago, pointing to growing popularity of AI agents from Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic and stronger-than-expected AI-driven services at Accenture as signs demand is broadening.

Mizuho raised its price targets on AMD, Intel and several other chip and server names, saying the rise of agentic AI use cases is driving a surge in CPU demand. The firm lifted its AMD target to $705 from $580, Dell to $650 from $600, Intel to $114 from $92, Sandisk to $2,050 from $1,875 and SMCI to $43 from $35, maintaining Outperform ratings on all except SMCI, which is rated Neutral. Analysts led by Vijay Rakesh estimate agentic CPUs reaching about $80B by 2030E, a roughly 123% four-year CAGR, with head-node CPUs at $68B and traditional CPUs at $60B, putting the total server CPU TAM at about $209B by 2030E, a 32% four-year CAGR. Mizuho said agentic AI CPU demand should grow from about 4% of total server CPUs today to about 30% by 2030E, and it pointed to Meta's Muse personal AI agent and OpenAI's Dots as evidence that agents are being integrated more deeply into daily work. The firm named four leading-edge CPUs for agentic workloads: Arm's AGI CPU, AMD's Venice, Nvidia's Vera and Intel's Diamond Rapids, and it maintained its $325 target and Outperform rating on Nvidia and reiterated an Outperform rating and $1,400 target on Micron.

Bernstein lowered its price target on SK Hynix to 2.7 million won from 3.3 million won while keeping an Outperform rating, citing more conservative assumptions on the progress and pricing of high-bandwidth memory. Analyst Mark Li said Samsung Electronics is set to gain HBM share, keeping his 440,000 won target on that stock, and wrote that the firm still prefers Samsung among the incumbent suppliers. Bernstein cut its 2027 HBM price assumptions after Korean export data for July and August showed strong signals for Samsung but weaker ones from SK Hynix's HBM production site, and continued reports of HBM4 supply difficulties led Li to push back slightly the shift from the current HBM3E generation; he now expects HBM to remain less profitable than conventional DRAM in 2027. The broader memory outlook stays firm, with Bernstein expecting conventional memory prices to rise by the mid-teens to 20% in the third quarter and by a high single digit in the fourth, shortages persisting into 2027, and prices normalizing in 2028 as supplier gross margins ease from a peak of about 90% to the high 70s. The firm kept its Outperform ratings on Micron and SanDisk, with targets of $1,300 and $3,000.

Zacks Investment Research named Seagate Technology Holdings plc, Western Digital Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc. and Sandisk Corporation as four memory semiconductor stocks to watch in October 2026, citing AI-driven demand for high-bandwidth memory, DDR5 DRAM and enterprise SSDs alongside constrained supply. Seagate, rated Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) with a Growth Score of A, is expected to post a 132% year-over-year revenue increase and a 55% EPS increase in fiscal 2026, with its consensus estimate unchanged over the past 30 days. Western Digital, rated Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) with a Growth Score of A, is projected to grow fiscal 2026 EPS by approximately 96%, also unchanged over the past 30 days. Micron, rated Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a Growth Score of A, reported revenues that soared 345.7% year over year to $41.46 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $25.11 per share that grew 12 times year over year, while its fiscal 2026 EPS consensus implies an approximately 792% year-over-year increase and has been revised upward over the past 30 days. Sandisk, rated Zacks Rank #3 with a Growth Score of A, raised its 2026 datacenter exabyte growth view to the mid-70% range and sees fiscal 2026 revenues and EPS rising approximately 143% and 201%, respectively, with its earnings consensus revised upward over the past 30 days.

Bank of America downgraded Nike to Underperform from Neutral, with analyst Lorraine Hutchinson cutting her price target to $30 from $47 and lowering fiscal 2027 and 2028 EPS estimates by 11% and 12% to $1.43 and $1.87, saying the turnaround is taking longer to materialize. Stifel upgraded Microsoft to Buy from Hold, with analyst Brad Reback raising his price target to $575 from $530 and citing confidence in sustaining mid-to-upper-teens revenue growth. J.P. Morgan upgraded CoreWeave to Overweight from Neutral and lifted its price target to $125 from $120, pointing to favorable compute pricing and a greater willingness to lean into short-term contracts at premium pricing. UBS downgraded PG&E to Neutral from Buy and cut its price target to $14 from $19, lowering its long-term EPS growth forecast to 8.5% from 9% as the wildfire liability reform catalyst fades. KeyBanc downgraded Comcast to Underweight with an $18 price target, expecting domestic broadband net losses to widen to 665,000 in 2027, while HSBC downgraded Twilio to Reduce from Hold and Rosenblatt initiated SanDisk at Buy with a $2,400 price target.

Costco is absorbing low single-digit inflation across its merchandising categories, with the sharpest pressure coming from memory costs on consumer electronics tied to the AI boom. On the company's earnings call late Thursday, CFO Gary Millerchip said the increase was concentrated in non-foods, driven largely by memory costs on consumer electronics and oil-related items. Those pressured consumer electronics margins dragged Costco's gross profit margin down to 11.01% in the fiscal fourth quarter from 11.12% a year earlier. The memory chip market has tightened as demand for high-bandwidth memory and advanced dynamic random-access memory used in AI servers outpaces supply, and suppliers including SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron have largely sold out their premium AI memory capacity through much of 2026 as customers such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta race to build AI infrastructure. Experts expect memory supply to remain constrained into 2027, a favorable backdrop for the industry's largest producers such as Micron and Sandisk. Costco still posted a solid quarter, with total sales up 11.1% from the prior year to $95.72 billion, total comparable store sales up 9.4% and online sales up 19.5%, and Jefferies analyst Corey Tarlowe said the company remains one of retail's highest quality long-term compounders.

Micron Technology generated $25.4 billion in operating cash flow in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, more than double the $11.9 billion produced in the previous quarter and nearly 5.5 times the $4.6 billion generated in the year-ago quarter, while adjusted free cash flow reached a record $18.3 billion compared with $6.9 billion in the second quarter. Third-quarter revenues jumped 346% year over year to $41.46 billion and non-GAAP EPS rose to $25.11 from $1.91 a year earlier, leaving Micron with $30.2 billion in cash, marketable investments and restricted cash. The board of directors approved a 30% increase in the quarterly dividend to 15 cents per share in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, and the company returned approximately $1.09 billion through share buybacks and dividend payments in the first three quarters of fiscal 2026, even as it spent $19.6 billion on capital expenditures to expand AI memory capacity. Rivals are also benefiting from the same demand: SK hynix reported 79.32 trillion won in second-quarter 2026 revenues, up 257% year over year, with operating profit up 557% to 60.54 trillion won, and in August announced a 40 trillion won share repurchase and cancellation while raising its shareholder-return target to more than 50% of cumulative free cash flow for 2025-2027. Sandisk's fiscal 2026 revenues rose 175% to $20.25 billion and operating cash flow surged to $11.67 billion from $84 million a year earlier, and the company added $14 billion to its share repurchase authorization, taking total remaining authorization to $15.5 billion.

Sandisk has locked in buyers for roughly half of its output this fiscal year and two-thirds of next year's, under long-term contracts that carry floor prices and minimum financial guarantees. At its August investor day, the company said it had signed ten of these agreements with eight customers, and management set fiscal 2028 through 2030 targets of mid-to-high-teens revenue growth and adjusted gross margins around 80%. In its most recent quarter, ended July 3, revenue rose 372% from a year earlier to $8.97 billion, with data-center sales now about a third of the total, and the company swung to a profit of nearly $7 billion from a loss a year earlier. Sandisk, spun off from Western Digital in February 2025, authorized an additional $14 billion buyback alongside its August results and entered the S&P 100 on September 21, after shares gained more than 640% this year, the best performance in the S&P 500. The shares closed Friday about 24% below their June record, and the next signal is the fiscal first-quarter report, expected in early November.

Rosenblatt analyst Kevin Cassidy initiated coverage of Sandisk with a Buy rating and a $2,400 price target, arguing that AI workloads are transforming NAND flash from a commodity into critical computing infrastructure. The call follows a 698.69% year-to-date rally in Sandisk stock. Cassidy said new AI compute platforms create an opportunity to reposition NAND from a commodity storage medium to a more system-critical component of AI infrastructure, crediting Sandisk's BiCS8 and BiCS10 platforms and its 25-year manufacturing partnership with Kioxia. The $2,400 target is set at 10 times his fiscal 2028 earnings estimate, and he argues that New Business Model agreements with eight of the largest NAND customers could cover roughly 65% of fiscal 2028 production. Sandisk, spun off from Western Digital in February 2025, closed fiscal Q4 2026 with revenue of $8.965 billion, up 371.59% year over year, and non-GAAP EPS of $39.25 against a $33.28 consensus, while data center revenue reached $2.977 billion. CEO David Goeckeler cited more than four years of demand visibility through NBMs, with total expected revenue from signed agreements of at least $93.9 billion assuming floor pricing. Sandisk trades at roughly 8x forward earnings against a fiscal 2028 EPS consensus of $264.72 and a $2,125.09 average analyst target.

HSBC downgraded Netflix to Hold from Buy with a price target of $76, down from $96, citing Alphabet's YouTube taking increasing viewer share from the streaming giant. The call headlines Wall Street's most market-moving research, which also saw Jefferies downgrade both Valero to Hold from Buy with a $401 price target and Marathon Petroleum to Hold from Buy with a $413 price target, while Morgan Stanley cut Ericsson to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $9, down from $11. Among upgrades, Northcoast raised Brinker to Buy from Neutral with a $275 price target, Piper Sandler lifted MetLife to Overweight from Neutral with a price target of $110, up from $99, and Citi upgraded Fifth Third to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $62, up from $59. In initiations, Rosenblatt started SanDisk at Buy with a $2,400 price target, Needham began GE HealthCare at Buy with a $93 price target, and RBC Capital launched Everest Group at Outperform with a $455 price target. William Blair downgraded Endava to Underperform from Market Perform, and Northcoast cut ACV Auctions to Neutral from Buy after the company agreed to be acquired by Copart for $10.50 per share in cash.

Technology has quietly retaken market leadership heading into the fourth quarter, even after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since July 2023 and signaled it isn't finished. The FOMC raised its target range 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.00% on a unanimous 12-0 vote, with Chair Kevin Warsh saying inflation is too high and has been for too long, while the ten-year Treasury yield touched over 5%, its highest level since July 2007. Of the 18 officials submitting forecasts, 16 see at least one additional hike this year, and the median end-2026 dot sits near 4.1%, while the committee raised its core PCE forecast to 3.4% from 3.3% and pushed the expected return to 2% inflation out to 2029. Despite the hawkish backdrop, the Nasdaq climbed about 2% between the last two sessions of the week, reclaiming its 50-day moving average as investors rotated back into memory and chipmakers, with SanDisk surging nearly 11% on Friday to lead the S&P 500 and AMD closing within striking distance of its 52-week high. Advanced Micro Devices closed Friday at $559.82, up 2.7% on the session and roughly 161% year-to-date from a January starting point near $215, putting its market capitalization at about $914 billion, while SanDisk jumped 10.99% Friday to end just under $1,800 and is up more than 650% year-to-date, aided by a structural NAND flash shortage and its confirmation to join the S&P 100 on Monday.

Riverwater Partners said the absence of SanDisk from its Sustainable Value Strategy drove its second-quarter underperformance, as the NAND flash maker powered the Russell 2500 Value Index's best first-half run since 1991. In its Q2 2026 investor letter, the firm noted the Russell 2500 Value Index rose 17% and that SanDisk, spun off from Western Digital in February 2025, gained roughly 720% year to date and about 4,000% over the trailing twelve months. At its peak the stock comprised nearly 5% of the index and accounted for an estimated 6% of the index's year-to-date 2026 return, all from a single stock. Riverwater said it avoided SanDisk because memory semiconductors remain a cyclical commodity business where producers are price-takers, and because the company exceeded its market capitalization threshold, starting the year above $40 billion and surging past $250 billion by the time it was reconstituted out of the index at the end of the quarter. SanDisk closed at $1,791.82 per share on September 18, 2026, with a market capitalization of $262.35 billion and a 52-week range of $90.22 to $2,354.39.

Sandisk shares rallied sharply on Friday, climbing as much as 7.8% and still up 7.5% as of 12:34 p.m. ET, after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced earlier this month that the chipmaker would be added to the S&P 100, replacing longtime member Colgate-Palmolive, before the start of trading on Monday, Sept. 21. The S&P 100 is a subset of the S&P 500, the benchmark comprising roughly 500 of the largest U.S. companies, and includes the index's largest and most well-established members. The move is expected to spark short-term buying by major index and exchange-traded funds that track the S&P 100, which likely drove Friday's gain, while longer-term effects are seen as limited to prestige and increased visibility among institutional buyers. Sandisk's operating performance has been strong: for its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter ended July 3, revenue soared 372% year over year and 51% sequentially to $8.97 billion, while diluted earnings per share of $43.97 swung from a loss in the prior-year period and jumped 91% quarter-over-quarter. The stock trades at 24 times earnings and 8 times forward earnings.

The global memory shortage is far from over and may drive further upside for Micron Technology and Sandisk Corporation, according to a Zacks Investment Research analysis. TrendForce data cited in the report show regular DRAM contract prices jumped about 90%–95% in the first quarter of 2026, another 58%–63% in the second quarter, and are on track for a further 13%–18% increase in the third quarter, lifting a $1 DRAM chip to roughly $3.50, while NAND flash is up about 3x over the same stretch. IDC expects 2026 supply growth of only about 16% for DRAM and 17% for NAND, well below what AI demand requires, and new fabs from SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung are not expected to meaningfully add output until mid-to-late 2027 or later. Micron's fiscal Q3 revenue reached $41.5 billion, up from $9.3 billion a year ago, with gross margin of roughly 85% and adjusted EPS of $25.11, and management guided fiscal Q4 to roughly $50 billion in revenue, an 86% gross margin and approximately $31 in EPS ahead of its September 30 report. Sandisk's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue reached $8.97 billion, up 51% sequentially, with adjusted EPS of $39.25, and it guided fiscal Q1 to $10.3 billion to $10.8 billion in revenue and adjusted EPS between $44 and $46, with management saying the total NAND market could exceed $300 billion in 2026.

Barclays strategist Venu Krishna warned Thursday that the Federal Reserve's first rate hike since 2023 will not tame the explosive memory chip price inflation driven by the AI boom, calling it a key earnings risk to watch in 2027. Krishna said rapidly expanding compute requirements for training and inference are straining an already limited supply of memory chips. He pointed to recent commentary from major memory buyers, noting that Apple attributed all of its recent gross margin compression to higher memory costs expected to persist near term, while HP Inc. expects memory and storage costs to rise further as a percentage of bill of materials. Samsung, both a memory manufacturer and customer, said pre-booked demand implies a wider memory supply-demand gap in 2027 than in 2026, reinforcing expectations for sustained pricing strength. The market has tightened as demand for high-bandwidth memory and advanced dynamic random-access memory used in AI servers outpaces supply, with SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Micron largely sold out of premium AI memory capacity through much of 2026 as customers including Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta race to build AI infrastructure. Experts expect supply to remain constrained into 2027, a favorable backdrop for producers such as Micron and Sandisk but likely higher-than-expected costs for companies that run their businesses on these chips.

Sandisk has signed a fresh amendment to its loan agreement that refinances its revolving credit facility and locks in up to US$1.5b in flexible borrowing capacity. The move reshapes the company's balance sheet as its share price has cooled, with a 7 day share price return down 11.9% and a 90 day share price return down 21.9%, even as its 1 year total shareholder return remains very large after a sharp run up earlier in the year. Against a last close of $1,530.90, the most followed narrative for Sandisk points to a fair value of about $2,126, framing the recent pullback as a valuation gap, while the SWS DCF model estimates a future cash flow value of about $1,206.91 per share, suggesting the stock trades above that fair value. The bullish narrative leans heavily on tight NAND supply and very strong AI demand, so any oversupply or slower data center spending could quickly test the story.

Sandisk is positioning its Edge storage business as a growth engine as on-device artificial intelligence adoption expands across smartphones, PCs, automotive systems and robotics. Edge revenues reached $5.43 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, up 48% sequentially, while fiscal 2026 Edge revenues surged 195% year over year to $12.16 billion. Edge product volumes grew by high single digits on an exabyte basis in fiscal 2026, with revenue per gigabyte climbing nearly 180% on higher sales and pricing. Management expects PCs and smartphones to return to growth in calendar 2027, with storage content per device rising through future refresh cycles as premium AI-enabled devices gain adoption. Sandisk faces direct competition from Micron Technology across NAND and client SSDs, and from Seagate Technology, whose Edge IoT revenues rose 20% year over year to $697 million in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2026. Sandisk shares have appreciated 553.8% year to date, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 earnings stands at $213.30 per share, implying 200.93% growth from the year-ago estimate.

Situational Awareness, the hedge fund formed by ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, is buying call options on Advanced Micro Devices, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, SK Hynix and SanDisk, returning to the strategy that nearly sank it earlier this year. The fund has bought hundreds of millions of dollars in option premiums, according to GuruFocus. Situational Awareness generated a 439% net return from the beginning of the year through June 30, briefly making it one of the best-performing large funds of 2026, but it was operating at around four times leverage when AI stocks turned in July, and its portfolio declined by about 67 percent, forcing it to sell off its AI assets. Citadel swooped in a day later to buy much of the public-equity holdings. The new stock picks span processors, cloud computing, memory and electricity, some of the main bottlenecks in the AI buildout.

SanDisk has surged 2,107% over the past year, a run that Morningstar chief global markets editor Tom Lauricella says has reclassified the two largest companies in the S&P 500 as discount trades. "Apple and Microsoft look like value stocks just because of where they are in the rankings," Lauricella said, describing how the AI storage buildout is bending index construction around a single flash-memory supplier. According to Lauricella's team, value indexes have moved from 11% technology at end-2024 to roughly 20% technology currently, with Amazon now the largest holding in the Russell Large Value Index at 6%. The fundamentals behind the move are substantial: SanDisk's fiscal Q4 report on Aug. 5, 2026 showed revenue of $8.96B, up 371.6% year over year, and non-GAAP EPS of $39.25 versus a $33.28 consensus, the fifth consecutive beat, while full fiscal 2026 revenue was $20.248B, up 175.3%, with non-GAAP EPS of $70.88 and net income of $11.433B. Guidance points higher, with Q1 FY27 revenue of $10.30B to $10.80B and non-GAAP EPS of $44.00 to $46.00, and the board approved an additional $14B buyback, bringing remaining authorization to $15.5B on a market capitalization of $239.4 billion. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 8 against an analyst target of $2,125.09, and S&P Dow Jones Indices announced on Sept. 4, 2026 that SanDisk is among companies joining major S&P benchmarks.

Kioxia Holdings Corp.'s chief executive dismissed the possibility of deeper ties with rival and stakeholder SK Hynix Inc., while pledging to keep surging memory prices in check to protect long-term AI demand. CEO Hiroo Ota said that closer collaboration with SK Hynix would face antitrust hurdles and conflict with Kioxia's joint manufacturing with Sandisk Corp., and that no talks are underway. He instructed sales teams not to push for substantially higher prices from data center operators, noting that prices have already risen enough and that further hikes could hurt the market. Kioxia and Sandisk together plan more than ¥5 trillion ($33 billion) in spending to expand capacity at their jointly owned facilities in Japan, while SK Hynix plans a 54 trillion won ($40 billion) expansion in Korea. Kioxia's average NAND price rose 70% in the June quarter after more than doubling the prior quarter, and analysts expect operating profit to climb more than nine-fold in the year to March.

Sandisk Corporation, the flash-memory powerhouse, earned promotion to the S&P 100 before trading opens September 21, following an explosive Friday session that sent the stock 11.9% higher to $1,740, making it the S&P 500's biggest gainer and pushing its market value to roughly $273 billion. The company's latest quarterly results showed revenue rocketing 372% to $8.97 billion, gross margin expanding to 84.6%, and data-center revenue more than doubling sequentially to $2.98 billion. Management also lifted the remaining share-repurchase authorization to $15.5 billion, which represents approximately 5.7% of Sandisk's market capitalization, and projected as much as $10.8 billion in revenue for the coming quarter. S&P 100 admission could unlock another wave of index-fund demand, but the GuruFocus chart flashes a warning: Sandisk's GF Score is only 51 out of 100, with strong growth and financial strength offset by weak GF Value and momentum readings. Sustaining a $1,740 valuation will require its long-term customer agreements to hold firm when NAND supply eventually catches up.

SanDisk Corp. rallied for a third consecutive day on Friday, jumping 11.9 percent to close at $1,740 apiece as investors gobbled up shares ahead of its addition to the S&P 100 index later this month. As part of its latest quarterly index rebalancing, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that SanDisk will join the S&P 100 beginning September 21, alongside Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, and Arista Networks, replacing Honeywell Aerospace, Nike Inc., Simon Property Group, and Colgate-Palmolive. The inclusion marks a significant milestone for the memory maker, potentially providing greater visibility among institutional and global investors and propelling demand for its shares as funds tracking the S&P 100 reposition their portfolios. The rally also reflects portfolio-positioning ahead of SanDisk's participation in the Citi 2026 Global TMT Conference on Tuesday, September 8, and Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology Conference 2026 on Wednesday, September 9. Institutional investors turned highly optimistic in the second quarter, with 128 hedge funds holding positions, up from 114 in the first quarter, and their combined holdings soaring by 125 percent to $25.6 billion from $11.3 billion quarter-on-quarter.

In midday trading, several stocks made notable moves. Guidewire Software plummeted 21% after issuing weaker-than-expected current-quarter revenue guidance of $372 million to $378 million, below the LSEG consensus of $387 million. Tesla dropped 6% following a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation into whether its Cybercab meets federal safety standards, after the company launched robotaxis in Austin. Sandisk and KLA rallied more than 8% and 7% respectively, as the semiconductor sector gained ahead of the long weekend, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) up over 2% and the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) up 5%. Quanex Building Products surged 19% after beating third-quarter estimates with adjusted earnings of 79 cents per share on revenue of $501.8 million, versus the FactSet consensus of 66 cents and $497.5 million. AMC Entertainment rose 6.5% after CEO Adam Aron criticized Robinhood's stock tokens as "contemptible, outrageous, disgusting," while Robinhood slipped nearly 1%. Credit monitoring firms Equifax, TransUnion, and Fair Isaac fell after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte said they have been "overcharging Americans for too long," with Fair Isaac down over 15%, Equifax down 6.8%, and TransUnion down over 7%. Smith & Wesson gained 6% on an earnings beat, reporting 6 cents per share versus an expected loss of 6 cents, on revenue of $112.6 million versus the $98.7 million consensus. Lululemon Athletica tumbled 17% after forecasting current-quarter earnings of 93 to 98 cents per share on revenue of $2.29 billion to $2.32 billion, below analyst expectations of $2.40 per share and $2.53 billion. Zscaler slipped 5% despite beating earnings estimates, while Adobe fell 6% after announcing Anil Chakravarthy as its next CEO. Asana dropped 14% on weak guidance, Samsara advanced 4% on strong full-year outlook, UiPath lost 16% despite in-line guidance, and Oxford Industries sank 17% after cutting its full-year guidance.

Sandisk shares jumped as much as 8.9% on Friday after Nvidia confirmed its acquisition of AI platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, a move that signals continued strength in AI-related demand. The deal, which Nvidia says will bolster its position in the AI developer community, is seen as positive for Sandisk because Nvidia's GPU sales drive demand for Sandisk's NAND flash memory chips. Additionally, Dell's COO noted that memory constraints, including NAND, remain a bottleneck for AI servers, further supporting Sandisk's outlook. At 23 times earnings and 8 times forward earnings, Sandisk stock is considered attractively priced.

Micron Technology and SanDisk shares jumped on Friday, with Micron rising 5% and SanDisk 8%, even as a stronger-than-expected jobs report briefly pushed odds of a Federal Reserve rate hike above 50%. The U.S. added 162,000 jobs in August, nearly triple the expected 56,000, while unemployment held at 4.1%. The report sent Treasury yields higher, but memory stocks shrugged off the rate scare, driven by persistent supply shortages. Dell's COO Jeff Clarke highlighted the crunch, saying "DRAM, DRAM, DRAM, followed by NAND, NAND, NAND," and Susquehanna expects DRAM contract prices to rise over 50% this quarter and NAND prices about 60%. The surge comes despite Chinese rivals gaining market share, with CXMT doubling its DRAM share to 10% and YMTC's NAND share climbing to 14%.

Japanese companies are performing well in the Indxx Climate Change Index, which is composed of stocks that contribute to global warming countermeasures. Four of the top 10 gainers year-to-date are Japanese companies, with battery maker GS Yuasa up 41%, water treatment company Kurita Water Industries up 26%, and waste incinerator and water treatment firm Takuma and power semiconductor maker Sanken Electric both up 23%, far outpacing the index's 5% gain. During the same period, the Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX) rose 23%. The generative AI boom has led to the development of large-scale data centers, which increases power consumption and heat generation, drawing investor attention to cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing, energy storage, and cooling technologies. Oscar Young of Impax Asset Management, which specializes in sustainable investment, noted that if large-scale semiconductor plant investment continues in Japan, the beneficiaries would be semiconductor materials and manufacturing equipment makers, water treatment, and power management companies. According to Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications data, ICT sector power demand in 2040 is expected to be up to 27 times that of 2020, highlighting the growing importance of energy efficiency and cooling. Kioxia Holdings will invest 5 trillion yen in Japan over the next six years with U.S. partner SanDisk, and South Korea's SK Hynix is also considering building a plant in Japan. A Japan Development Bank survey shows that major companies' domestic capital investment plans for fiscal 2026 are expected to rise 19.7%. Meanwhile, caution is emerging, with New York State halting new data center development for one year. The Nikkei semiconductor stock index has plunged 27% this quarter, but Tiemo Lang of Polar Capital believes the acceleration trend in AI investment will continue and that the correction is unlikely to cloud the outlook for environmental infrastructure companies.