Evercore ISI is jumping on the Sandisk bandwagon, initiating coverage of the stock with an outperform rating and $1,200 price target. That implies 26% upside from Monday’s close. However, its bull case has the stock surging to $2,600 — a 173% jump. The flash memory storage company has been on a tear this year, already climbing more than 290%, as demand for its chips soared on the artificial-intelligence boom. “We believe SNDK is levered to one of the most attractive areas of the AI infrastructure stack — data storage, where demand is accelerating and supply remains constrained at minimum through CY28 if not beyond,” analyst Amit Daryanani said in a note Monday. SNDK YTD mountain Sandisk year to date “Despite strong stock performance, we see further upside driven by earnings revisions, mix shift toward enterprise SSD [solid state drive], and multiple re-rating,” he added. Daryanani sees room for sustained growth from average selling price tailwinds since the industry is more focused on supply-demand and return optimization rather than pure bit growth. Increased exposure to enterprise and cloud should also drive a stronger growth path and diversity for the company, he said. In addition, there is room for sustained margin and free-cash-flow expansion, he noted. Lastly, Daryanani expects the company to begin returning capital to shareholders in the form of buybacks.
