Everyone will buy SPCX on June 12. Smart money won't. 
SanDisk's Stock and Short Interest Both at Record Highs —Do the Bears Know Something?
Written by Sam Quirke on June 1, 2026
Key Points
- SanDisk shares have hit fresh highs this week, powered by an AI-driven memory boom that shows no signs of slowing.
- Short interest has simultaneously climbed to its highest ever level on a quarterly basis, setting up one of the more fascinating bull-bear standoffs in the market right now.
- With multiple analysts carrying price targets well above the current price, the bull camp has plenty of ammunition, and the bears might already be in retreat.
- Special Report: They're calling it the biggest IPO in history. I'd rather own this.
Shares of SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) are trading close to $1,650 this week, having hit a fresh record high and extended one of the more extraordinary runs of the year to date. The stock’s up almost 600% year to date and more than 50% in the past month alone.
Put that in the context of a stock that has already surged over 4,000% in the past 12 months, and you have a company that is either one of the great AI-era growth stories of this cycle, or one of the most dangerous momentum trades in the market—or possibly both.
What makes SanDisk's current setup so fascinating is that the bull and bear cases are playing out simultaneously and in full view. As the stock has climbed to multiple record highs this year, so has short interest, which recently hit its highest ever level on a quarterly basis.
That kind of divergence, where conviction on both sides is rising at the same time, doesn't happen often. Let’s jump into it and see how this push-and-pull battle is shaping up.
When the SpaceX IPO launches, most retail investors will be locked out. The banks, funds, and insiders get in early - while everyone else waits on the sidelines.
But one small infrastructure supplier - a critical piece Musk can't scale the Colossus network without - is still trading well under institutional radar. A new briefing reveals the name and ticker at no cost. Get the SpaceX infrastructure stock name and ticker here Why the Bulls Have Such a Strong Case
The foundation of the bull case is straightforward: AI needs memory, and SanDisk is one of the best-positioned companies in the world to supply it. As large language models become more complex and inference workloads scale, the demand for both DRAM and NAND flash memory is growing faster than the industry can comfortably keep up with.
Alper Ilkbahar, SanDisk's CTO, made this exact point recently, saying that the ongoing memory crunch is far from a short-term phenomenon. The commercial evidence backs that up. Ilkbahar shared that SanDisk has locked in multiple five-year supply agreements with customers that carry a minimum revenue commitment of more than $42 billion—not bad for a company whose market cap is still less than $250 billion.
Looking further out, SanDisk is developing what it calls high-bandwidth flash, positioning it as the next critical technology for AI inference workloads. If that technology gains traction the way the company believes it will, it adds another growth layer to an already very compelling story.
Analysts Are Firmly in the Bull Camp
The analyst activity around SanDisk in recent weeks has also been notably bullish. The team at Barclays, for example, just upped its rating on the stock to Overweight while raising its price target to $2,300 this week, describing memory and storage as the most attractive vertical in the semiconductor space below accelerators.
Susquehanna went even further, lifting its target to $3,250, while Mizuho also raised its target, citing the agentic AI tailwind. Against a current price of just under $1,700, those targets imply there’s still some meaningful upside to be had after the extraordinary gains the stock has already logged.
The valuation argument is nearly as interesting as the analyst price targets. You’d be forgiven for thinking that with this level of hype and those types of gains, SanDisk was trading at a sky-high valuation. But no, it’s actually priced at a price-to-earnings (PE) ratio of around 58, which compares favorably to some of its peers.
For a company with SanDisk's revenue growth and margin expansion trajectory, the argument that it’s still undervalued relative to the broader AI hardware universe isn’t all that unreasonable.
Goldman Sachs just revealed that 40% of AI data centers will be crippled by electricity shortages by 2027 - not chips, not funding, but power. Demand is growing 15% per year and the grid can't keep up.
One small company makes the exact equipment these data centers need. They're sitting on $1.5 billion in orders, their hardware is already inside Musk's Colossus, and the stock still trades like a name nobody's heard of. Analyst Dylan Jovine is releasing the ticker for free. See the stock positioned to solve AI's biggest power crisis The Short Interest Story Is Interesting
However, here's where things get interesting. While the bulls have been building their case, the bears have been aggressive, making moves of their own, at least until very recently. Short interest in SanDisk is tracking towards its highest-ever level on a quarterly basis, a remarkable data point for a stock trading at all-time highs.
The implication is that a significant cohort of investors is betting against the rally. In recent weeks, however, something has started to shift. Short interest has declined from April to May, which is likely adding to the strong bid that’s driving the stock higher.
It’s not hard to imagine some of the bears who’ve been holding short positions against a stock during a 4,000% rally are finally running out of patience. As they exit their short positions by buying back the stock, they add buying pressure that extends the very rally they were betting against. With the stock on the verge of closing above $1,700 for the first time, there’s a fair chance we’ll be seeing even more of these shorts forced to cover in the coming weeks.
The Downside Deserves Attention
Still, this record short interest, even if it is beginning to unwind, is a reminder that plenty of informed investors see meaningful risk in SanDisk. They may be getting squeezed right now, but that doesn't mean their underlying thesis that the stock has gone too far too fast is wrong, only that the timing has been painful.
For now, the bulls are winning—but with a stock up 4,000% in a year and bears still circling, this is one worth watching very closely.
Read this article online ›
Featured Articles
Did you learn something from this article?
 
| 