SanDisk Sinks 7.2% as Chip Selloff, Inflation Data and CXMT Fears Converge Ahead of October 29 Earnings
Published on 10/18/2026 at 21:10 | Editorial boerse-global.de
SanDisk shares closed Friday at €1,160.00, down 7.2%, as a broad semiconductor selloff, hotter-than-expected inflation data and fresh worries about Chinese competition combined to hammer memory-chip names. Reuters reported that the stock was headed for a weekly loss of roughly 15%, and the slide has left the shares 44% below their 52-week high.
The trigger was not company-specific news. A US consumer price index for September that came in above expectations ratcheted up pressure on rate-sensitive technology and chip stocks in particular. According to AP, investors shed positions in chipmakers as doubts mounted over whether the massive spending wave into AI infrastructure can be sustained. Media reports noted that semiconductor names have now fallen for nine consecutive trading sessions.
A Sector That Suddenly Looks Vulnerable
For months, the chip sector was treated as an untouchable beneficiary of the artificial-intelligence boom. Friday laid bare how fragile that consensus has become: investors are now demanding hard evidence of durable demand rather than buying the narrative. Some of the selling also reflected precautionary profit-taking ahead of upcoming earnings reports, according to media accounts.
Competition added a second front. Reports that CXMT President Cao Kanyu presented advances in 4F² DRAM architecture at an industry conference in Shanghai rattled sentiment. The Chinese company plans to deploy the technology in DDR5-RDIMM server memory by the end of the year, and Reuters reported that the disclosure sharpened fears of tougher competition while further clouding the outlook for AI spending.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SANDISK?
SanDisk's Own Case: Data Centers Now Half of Flash Bits
Company-specific news was absent Friday, but SanDisk has been making its own argument about where demand is headed. On October 7, Eric Cherrstrom, Vice President of Market Intelligence at SanDisk, laid out the company's market assessment, noting that 50% of flash bits now go to data centers.
Cherrstrom also pointed to projected infrastructure spending by hyperscalers and neocloud providers, which is expected to reach $842 billion in 2026 and climb to nearly $1.1 trillion in 2027. Those figures underpin the company's case that modern server infrastructure is becoming ever more central to memory demand — a thesis that Friday's trading did little to validate.
October 29 Looms Large
Hard numbers on the operating side are now the next catalyst. SanDisk announced on September 29, 2026, that it will report results for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 on October 29, 2026, with an analyst and investor call scheduled for 13:30 Pacific time.
Market participants will be listening closely for commentary on memory demand and margin trends. That report will be the first real test of how resilient SanDisk's order book and margins actually are in a memory-chip environment that is turning noticeably rougher — and of whether the company's data-center thesis can quiet a market that has spent the past week selling first and asking questions later.
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