Goldman Sachs Raises SanDisk Price Target to $2,200, Bullish on August Earnings
Taylor Wilson
Goldman Sachs nearly doubled its Sandisk price target from $1,200 to $2,200, reaffirming a Buy rating on tight NAND supply and surging enterprise SSD sales. Yet the stock barely moved — a Samsung-triggered sector sell-off has overwhelmed bullish calls, making the August 5 earnings report the decisive test.
Why did Goldman nearly double the target?
Goldman raised Sandisk's (SNDK) price target from $1,200 to $2,200, implying roughly 21% upside from the current price, and reaffirmed its Buy rating.
Analyst James Schneider's forecast for Sandisk's calendar-year 2026 adjusted EPS runs nearly 30% above Wall Street consensus. This means → Goldman sees the Street as directionally wrong on Sandisk's earnings power, not just slightly off.
Schneider explicitly called the fiscal Q4 results — due August 5 — a "very strong quarter." In plain terms = Goldman is not just long-term bullish; it is betting the next earnings print delivers.
What is driving the blowout quarter?
Supply side: Goldman expects the global NAND flash shortage to persist through 2026. Demand is recovering across mobile, PC, and data-center segments simultaneously, while capacity is being diverted to premium AI storage — squeezing supply of conventional products and pushing prices higher.
Product mix: Sandisk's fiscal Q3 enterprise SSD (high-capacity solid-state drives for data centers) revenue jumped 233% quarter-on-quarter; data-center revenue surged 645% year-on-year. This reflects a rapid pivot from consumer-grade storage toward high-margin enterprise AI storage.
New product revenue: Management confirmed fiscal Q4 will be the first quarter of recognized revenue from the Stargate high-capacity enterprise SSD line, designed specifically for AI storage workloads. In plain terms = the investment phase is over; this is when real revenue starts flowing.
How high is management's own guidance?
Fiscal Q4 guidance: revenue $7.75 billion to $8.25 billion, non-GAAP gross margin 79% to 81%, non-GAAP EPS $30 to $33.
Goldman believes actual results can beat this guidance. This means → even the company's already-aggressive guidance looks conservative to Goldman.
Three banks are bullish — so why won't the stock move?
Bernstein raised its target to $3,000 in late June; Bank of America lifted its to $2,500 in early July. Three major banks, all pointing the same way.
Yet on the day Goldman published, Sandisk rose only about 3% to 5%, then slid with the broader storage sector. The upgrade provided almost no support. This reflects a market where sector sentiment is overriding single-stock fundamentals — no research call can withstand a sector-wide sell-off.
What triggered the sell-off?
Samsung Electronics reported preliminary Q2 operating profit near a record ₩89 trillion, roughly 19× year-on-year — yet storage stocks sold off anyway. In plain terms = results were so strong the market concluded all the good news was already priced in.
The deeper fear is capacity expansion: Samsung and SK Hynix both announced production increases, sparking expectations that NAND prices will soften. This means → the market is not worried about today; it is worried about what happens once new supply floods in.
What does the August 5 report actually settle?
Sandisk's specific risk: multi-year agreements cover just over a third of its bit supply; most of the remainder is exposed to spot-price swings. If NAND prices fall, unlocked volumes take the first hit, and the trailing-twelve-month gross margin of 56.0% comes under pressure.
After July's sharp pullback, Sandisk trades at roughly 9× forward earnings, sits in a net-cash position (net debt of negative $3.53 billion), and has announced a $6 billion buyback. This means → valuation and cash flow provide a cushion, but whether it holds depends on where NAND prices go.
August 5 is the verdict: Goldman is betting on "structural growth"; the market fears "cycle peak." In plain terms = both sides have logic on their side — this earnings report is the referee.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.