Report date: August 5, 2026 (after market close) | Event: Fiscal Q4/Full-Year 2026 Earnings Call
Few large-cap names have had a wilder 2026 than SanDisk. After spinning off from Western Digital in February 2025 as a pure-play NAND flash company, SNDK shares went from roughly $275 in early January to an intraday all-time high of $2,354 on June 22 — a gain of nearly 9x — before crashing more than 55% into late July.
From a closing high of $2,335.00 on June 25, the stock fell 56.49% to close at $1,015.89 on July 29, the S&P 500's worst performer for the month, before closing up 25.99% at $1,279.96 on July 30. Shares have since stabilized in the $1,200–$1,430 range heading into the print. Notably, much of the July collapse had little to do with SanDisk's fundamentals and a lot to do with a large leveraged fund unwinding a concentrated AI/memory position, compounded by a broader sector rout after SK Hynix's Q2 report showed a record 557% year-over-year profit jump but guided to lift 2026 capex by 50% to at least $31 billion, stoking fears the AI capex cycle is overheating. Competitive angst around Chinese NAND/DRAM entrants also weighed on sentiment, as competition concerns grew as China's CXMT moved to list and local lithography advanced.
Options markets are pricing an unusually large move around tomorrow's print — roughly a 25% move in either direction — underscoring how binary sentiment has become around this name.
SanDisk's prior quarter set the bar extremely high and is the reason expectations are so elevated now. Per the company's own reporting:
| Metric | Q3 FY26 | Q2 FY26 | Y/Y |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $5.95B | $3.03B | +251% |
| Non-GAAP Gross Margin | 78.4% | 51.1% | +55.7 ppt |
| Non-GAAP EPS | $23.41 | $6.20 | vs. $(0.30) |
| Adjusted Free Cash Flow | $2.96B (49.7% margin) | $0.84B | — |
| Data Center Revenue | $1.47B | $0.44B | +233% Q/Q, +645% Y/Y |
Results dramatically exceeded SanDisk's own guidance (revenue guide was $4.4–4.8B; gross margin guide was 65–67%). The beat was driven by mix-shift toward data center/enterprise SSD customers and sharply higher NAND pricing.
Management's own Q4 guidance, issued in April, called for: - Revenue: $7.75B–$8.25B - Non-GAAP gross margin: 79%–81% - Non-GAAP EPS: $30.00–$33.00 - Diluted shares: ~158M
Since then, the Street has pushed estimates above the top end of guidance — a sign analysts believe the NAND pricing/demand environment strengthened further during the quarter. Consensus estimates cited across sell-side and data providers cluster around $8.3–8.4B in revenue and EPS in the $33–35 range, with Sandisk's non-GAAP earnings guide of $30–33 per share compared against a consensus mark of $34.24, up 2.8% over the past 30 days, and some bulls modeling even higher: Q4 revenue projected at $8.4–8.7B and non-GAAP EPS around $36, above consensus. That means simply "meeting guidance" may not be enough to satisfy the market — investors may be let down by results that only match estimates, following the recent record-breaking run, and consensus for fourth-quarter EPS runs about 5.1% higher than the top end of management's guidance.
Goldman Sachs has been among the most bullish, with analyst James Schneider raising his price target and raising the firm's price target on SanDisk from $1,200 to $2,200 while reiterating a Buy rating, expecting a very strong quarter driven by continued NAND supply tightness and encouraging signals from customer agreements disclosed after peer Micron's earnings, with estimates raised on improving NAND pricing trends.
The single biggest thing differentiating this cycle from prior NAND cycles — and the key theme management will almost certainly revisit — is SanDisk's push into multi-year, contractually-backed supply agreements ("New Business Models"). As of the last call, management had:
Management explicitly framed this as an attempt to de-cyclicalize the business — locking in demand certainty for SanDisk and supply assurance for hyperscale customers, with a mix of fixed and variable pricing (more fixed near-term, more variable further out). Analysts have zeroed in on downside protection embedded in these deals: SanDisk locked in three massive deals worth at least $42 billion over their total lifespan, with Bernstein's research separately pointing to a price floor of about $0.29 per gigabyte written into some of these newer contracts — a detail that matters because it tells you SanDisk's downside on that contracted volume is protected even if spot NAND prices eventually soften.
What to watch tonight: an updated NBM count/RPO figure, whether the >1/3 FY27 bit-commitment share has grown, and any qualitative color on renewal/duration cadence.
SanDisk enters this print in a much stronger financial position than a year ago: - Ended fiscal Q3 with $3.7B in cash and zero debt after repaying its remaining term loan balance - Board authorized a $6 billion share buyback with no expiration - Generated $2.96B in adjusted free cash flow in a single quarter (~50% FCF margin)
Investors will want an update on buyback pace and capital allocation priorities now that the "invest → net cash → return capital" sequence management outlined has largely been achieved.
Going into this print, the fundamental setup — data-center-led demand acceleration, a multi-year contracting strategy designed to reduce cyclicality, a fortress balance sheet, and a fresh buyback — is arguably as strong as it's been since the spinoff. Sell-side sentiment remains firmly bullish, with the Street's average 12-month price target suggesting more than 23% upside from current levels. But the stock's violent round-trip over the past six weeks shows how quickly narrative can flip on a "pure-play" NAND name with no diversification to hide behind. The key questions management needs to answer aren't really about the headline beat-or-miss (consensus already sits above guidance) — they're about (1) whether NAND pricing/ASP momentum continued through the quarter, (2) how far the QLC Stargate ramp has progressed, (3) whether the contracted (NBM) share of future bit volume has meaningfully increased beyond one-third, and (4) what early commentary suggests about fiscal 2027 margins and capacity plans. Given how much of the recent selloff was described as sentiment/positioning-driven rather than fundamentals-driven, a clean beat-and-raise with concrete NBM progress could spark a sharp relief rally — but a "good but not great" quarter, paired with any hint of pricing deceleration, risks reigniting the cyclicality fears that drove July's crash.