Memory chip stocks: Why Micron and Sandisk are soaring today as shortage fuels global RAM demand

This morning, shares of two of the largest computer memory companies that trade on U.S. markets are up yet again.

The stock prices of Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) and Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) rose after a Japanese memory firm issued a surprising outlook. Here’s what you need to know.

Stock prices jump as demand continues

Shares in several memory chip makers traded on U.S. markets are currently up in premarket trading this morning.

The companies include Micron and Sandisk, as well as Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) and Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX).

As of this writing, Micron shares are currently up 2.9%, Sandisk shares are up 6.2%, Western Digital shares are up 3%, and Seagate shares are up 2.5%.

While all four companies make memory chips, Western Digital and Seagate primarily focus on computer storage, leaving Micron and Sandisk as the two primary memory chip makers traded on U.S. exchanges.

And those two companies are getting a lot of attention, not just today, but as of late, due to the memory chip shortage that global supply chains are currently dealing with. 

As Fast Company previously reported, there is a global memory chip shortage in 2026. Computer memory, also known as RAM, is the component inside a computer that saves and processes short-term memory (as opposed to long-term memory, which is what hard drives and SSDs store).

Demand from artificial intelligence (AI) companies is fueling the shortage as they race to get as much RAM as they can get their hands on. These AI companies are currently building many AI data centers, which need powerful servers to run the AI, and those servers require memory to handle instructions.

As a result, demand for memory chips is off the charts.

And while that is bad for consumers, who are likely to see higher costs for smartphones and laptops this year due to rising memory prices, it’s very good for the companies that make memory, like Micron and SanDisk.

Why are memory chip companies seeing their prices rise today?

Today’s rise in memory company stock prices isn’t something totally out of the blue. The stock prices of memory companies have been rising for months as news of a memory chip shortage in 2026 spread.

However, the stock price jumps in MU and SNDK today seem to be primarily due to a Japanese company called Kioxia.

Kioxia is a Japanese flash memory supplier, and today, it reported fiscal third-quarter results. Those results, as noted by Investing.com, slightly exceeded expectations. Q4 guidance, on the other hand, blew past expectations.

Most analysts had expected Kioxia to issue Q4 revenue guidance of ¥648.2 billion (about $4.2 billion). Instead, the company said its Q4 guidance is ¥890 billion at the midpoint (about $5.8 billion). 

That is a massive difference and one that many investors see as evidence that demand for memory chips isn’t going to slow anytime soon. And when demand is high, prices rise, and memory chip companies make more money.

And investors seem to believe that if Kioxia is guiding much higher on revenue than analysts expected, that signals good news for memory chip companies on this side of the Pacific, too.

Memory chip stocks have had a great 2026 so far

Even before today’s Kioxia boost, U.S. memory chip stocks have had a pretty stellar run since the year began.

As of yesterday’s market close, Micron was up more than 43% year to date, Sandisk was up 152%, Western Digital was up 58%, and Seagate was up 47%.

To put those figures into greater context, the stock market they all trade on, the Nasdaq, has actually declined during the same period.

As of yesterday’s close, the Nasdaq Composite was down about 0.7% for the year so far, according to data from Yahoo Finance.

Looking back even further—over the past 12 months—the returns on these same four memory chip companies have been even more eye-popping.

In the last year, Seagate has risen 316%, Micron has jumped 336%, Western Digital is up 425%, and Sandisk has risen a staggering 1,609%. During the same period, the NASDAQ Composite has risen 17.4% 

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