SanDisk Drops to $1,817 as Korean Chip Selloff Reignites NAND Glut Fears

Where the Selling Started

The tell in this drop is geography. It didn't begin with a SanDisk-specific headline — it began in Seoul, where Korean semiconductor stocks led a global decline and dragged the AI-memory complex lower with them. Samsung and SK Hynix are the two largest NAND and DRAM makers on the planet, so when their shares sell off on supply-side news, the read-through to SanDisk is direct: the companies best positioned to see a glut coming are the ones the market marks down first. Morningstar's research desk flagged the memory names for a potential 20% to 30% valuation reset as Samsung and SK Hynix capacity is expected to soften pricing. SNDK fell 12.43% over 18 hours to roughly $1,817, part of a slide that also took Seagate down 7% and Micron down 4% in the same tape.

The Glut Thesis vs. The Target Hikes

The bear case is clean: AI capital expenditure is expected to peak in 2026 and taper, new Korean fab capacity lands into that peak, and NAND average selling prices roll over the way commodity memory eventually always does. On a stock up roughly 750% year-to-date and trading north of 70x trailing earnings, that's enough to trigger the exit — and part of what's moving the tape is a straight rotation out of AI hardware into AI software names. But the sell-side isn't buying the reversal. Bank of America lifted its SanDisk target to $2,500 from $2,100, arguing the supply-demand imbalance holds through 2027, and Bernstein sits at $3,000. Micron — the cleanest fundamental proxy in the group — just reported 346% year-over-year revenue growth and guided next quarter to $50 billion while trading at 7x forward earnings. When targets keep climbing into a double-digit drop, that reads as positioning unwinding, not a thesis breaking.

What the Perp Is Pricing

The SNDK market turned over $358.7M in 24-hour volume on its Hyperliquid perp through this leg, and the price action reads as momentum unwinding rather than forced deleveraging — a stretched, momentum-heavy name giving back the frothiest part of a vertical run. The level worth marking is $1,600, the round number the broader Korean-led chip decline was pointing toward. A hold above the recent lows keeps the "positioning, not fundamentals" read intact; a clean break puts the post-earnings base back in play. From here the tape is less about NAND spot prices and more about how much momentum length is still offside.