Sandisk (SNDK) has been among the top-performing S&P 500 stocks for most of 2026, recently surpassed only by pharmaceutical company Moderna.
Despite ceding the top spot, Sandisk holds second place by a wide margin, having risen nearly 500% over the course of the year.
That kind of gain is extraordinary by any measure, but the more pressing question for investors is whether 2027 can deliver a similar performance.
Sandisk manufactures NAND memory chips, which are used for long-term information storage in devices such as solid-state drives, commonly known as SSDs.
Demand for SSDs has surged dramatically due to the massive AI data center build-out currently underway across the global technology sector.
NAND memory functions largely as a commodity product, meaning when demand is high and supply is constrained, prices rise sharply and revenues follow.
In the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, ending July 3, Sandisk reported revenue growth of 372% year over year, driven in large part by elevated chip prices.
Investors remain cautious about cyclicality in memory markets, a concern backed by historical precedent, but Sandisk is actively working to reshape its business model.
The company has signed five multi-year supply agreements that lock in committed volumes for customers and committed pricing for Sandisk, backed by more than $11 billion in financial guarantees.
Management has stated that these deals already cover more than a third of the company’s planned output for fiscal 2027, providing a more reliable revenue foundation than the company previously had.
As of the end of fiscal Q4, Sandisk had secured multiyear agreements with eight clients, giving the business greater stability against the volatility that has historically plagued the memory sector.
Sandisk is also partnering with memory competitor SK Hynix to standardize memory components, a move that management expects to benefit both companies competitively.
The company is simultaneously upgrading its NAND technology to maintain its dominant position as demand continues to accelerate across data-intensive applications.
Goldman Sachs published research identifying what it called the “Great Memory Crunch,” noting that high-bandwidth memory supply is unlikely to ease until 2028 at the earliest.
Goldman’s research also noted that no new NAND wafer capacity is expected to come online in either 2026 or 2027, while demand is expanding at more than 20% annually.
Sandisk sits at the center of this supply-demand imbalance, positioning it as a potential top-five S&P 500 performer again in 2027 if current market conditions hold.
