Goldman Hands SanDisk a $150 Billion Story and the Stock Falls 7%

Goldman Sachs▼−0.56% — Goldman Sachs, down 0.56 percent today gave SanDisk▼−6.36% — SanDisk, down 6.36 percent today the next chapter of its run on Monday. Analyst James Schneider argued that High-Bandwidth Flash, NAND stacked and wired the way high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks DRAM, can break the memory wall AI inference keeps hitting, and picked the stocks to own for it ¹. SanDisk is up 575% in 2026 to about $1,600 ². By Monday morning the shares were down 7.02%, with SK Hynix▼−4.02% — SK Hynix, down 4.02 percent today off 4.10% and Samsung▼−4.39% — Samsung, down 4.39 percent today off 4.39% ¹.

The scare sat in the other memory segment. China's CXMT▼−5.22% — CXMT, down 5.22 percent today told an industry event in Shanghai it had made key progress on a next-generation DRAM cell↗, with server modules planned by the end of 2026 ³. CXMT already holds 10% of the global DRAM market, up from 4% a year earlier, per Counterpoint ⁸.

HBF would take 9% of wafers for 4% of the bits

Schneider sized HBF at $40 billion to $150 billion by 2030↗, depending on whether 15% or 50% of AI chips adopt it ¹. He estimated it could cut the cost of inference throughput by about 30%, worth several hundred billion dollars in cloud capex savings ¹. The sting is the wafer arithmetic: his bull case puts HBF at roughly 4% of global NAND bit shipments by late 2028 while consuming roughly 9% of wafer capacity, because the dies are larger ¹.

Wafers stacked into inference packages are wafers not making ordinary flash, so the fix for the memory wall points to tighter supply for everything else that uses NAND, phones and consoles included. Cloud providers bank the capex savings; phone, PC and console buyers fund the diversion.

Samples are due in early 2028, just ahead of Goldman's bull case

SanDisk and SK Hynix published the first HBF specification on August 3 through the Open Compute Project↗ ⁴. SK Hynix's conference timeline puts the full specification in early 2027 and first samples in early 2028 ⁵, barely ahead of the late-2028 adoption Goldman's bull case assumes ¹. The bank rates SanDisk, SK Hynix and Samsung Buy, favors the first two for technology leadership, keeps Micron▼−3.60% — Micron, down 3.60 percent today Neutral, and flags rival routes at Kioxia and Samsung ¹.

The margin curve is the bear case

The filings make the bear case. Gross margin ran 22.5% in the quarter ended March 2025 and 84.6% in the quarter ended July 3 ⁷. Two-thirds of last quarter's 51% sequential revenue jump came from higher prices, and the guide for the quarter now being reported holds margin at 83% to 85% on modest price increases ⁶. The last downcycle, fiscal 2023, cut revenue 38% and sank gross margin to 7.1% ⁶.

The contracts are the defense; October 29 is the verdict

The shield is contractual. Multiyear agreements with price floors are expected to cover about half the bits SanDisk ships in fiscal 2027↗, worth at least $93.9 billion at floor pricing ⁶. Tracker TrendForce still sees NAND contract prices rising 15% to 20% next quarter, and no downturn has tested those floors ⁶.

Fiscal first-quarter results land Thursday October 29↗ ⁹. After a 575% run, a beat is table stakes; the test is whether pricing still adds to sequential growth and whether the next margin guide holds ⁶.

Until then, Monday priced the doubt: memory is one trade, and a DRAM headline out of Shanghai can take seven points off the name Goldman likes best ¹³.