SNDK Bid Returns at $1,380 as the Q3 Beat Finally Meets the $6B Buyback

The Bid Finally Shows

After four sessions of grinding lower from the May 8 all-time high near $1,564, SNDK on the xyz HIP-3 market printed a session low around $1,316 before mean-reverting back to $1,380 — roughly +4.8% off the lows over 20 hours and tracking the Friday cash tape, which traded in a $1,315.75–$1,426.38 range and is up more than 8% intraday in the underlying. This isn't a fresh-news bounce. It's the tape finally agreeing with the Q3 print that dropped earlier this week after the original post-earnings reaction got smothered by a heavy macro setup and a string of forced sellers. With the bid back, the open question is whether $1,380 holds long enough to take the post-earnings $1,426 high.

The Q3 Print That Took a Week to Land

The numbers haven't changed since Tuesday — only the market's willingness to pay for them. Sandisk's fiscal Q3 2026 revenue came in at roughly $5.95B, up 251% year-over-year and 97% sequentially, with adjusted EPS of $23.41 versus $5.15 the prior quarter. Data center revenue alone grew 233%, and management guided Q4 to $7.75B–$8.25B — a sequential acceleration on top of an already vertical curve. Stacked on the print: a $6.00B share buyback authorization and the company's pivot toward multiyear committed-capacity contracts with hyperscalers. Combined with Gartner's call for NAND ASPs to rise as much as 234% in 2026, the print describes a company short the entire AI memory cycle.

Why The Tape Resisted At First

The reason a 251% revenue print didn't immediately rip the stock is that it landed into an unusually crowded exit. The prior HIPERWIRE coverage flagged the Kim Yong-beom AI-dividend overhang out of South Korea and a Foord sell flip on May 13 — both real, both heavy, both unrelated to fundamentals. On top of that, Tutanota LLC launched an unsolicited mini-tender for up to 100,000 shares at $1,150 — a price the company explicitly told shareholders to ignore as below market. Net, a ~10% drawdown from ATH absorbed forced selling without breaking the structural bid. The Friday repricing is the unwind of that mechanical overhang, not a re-rating.

What's In Play

$1,380 is the line in the sand. Holding it through the weekly close keeps the post-earnings $1,426 high in play as the near-term magnet; reclaim there and the May 8 $1,564 ATH is back on the table given the stock is still the best YTD performer in the S&P 500 at +550%. Lose $1,380 and the Friday low near $1,316 becomes the test — a break there reopens the gap toward the pre-earnings shelf and tells you the buyback bid wasn't enough to absorb the rest of the macro overhang. On HIP-3, 20h volume of $154.6M means there's a real two-sided book to trade against rather than the thin tape that defined the early mover prints.