Micron and SanDisk Recover as CXMT Falls Despite Profit Surge

what happened

Shares of Micron and SanDisk climbed roughly 4% in premarket trading on Monday, recovering from last week's sell-off, according to Seeking Alpha. SK Hynix gained 5%, while Western Digital and Seagate each advanced more than 3%. Meanwhile, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) dropped 7.77% in Shanghai even though it swung from a loss to a very large profit.

The slump followed CXMT's announcement of "key progress" on a new cell architecture designed to raise memory density. Over that stretch Micron lost 11% and SanDisk shed about 13%. In a preliminary estimate for the first nine months of 2026, CXMT expects operating revenue of Rmb265 billion to Rmb270 billion ($39.60 billion to $40.35 billion), compared with Rmb32.084 billion a year earlier. It projects net profit attributable to shareholders of Rmb131 billion to Rmb132.5 billion, versus a Rmb5.28 billion loss in the prior-year period. The company credited industry conditions, pointing to fast-growing AI computing demand and DRAM prices that had "risen substantially."

Seeking Alpha's view is that investors are now more concerned with where the memory boom fueled by AI heads next than with what it has already delivered. On Thursday, AI-linked stocks fell worldwide as higher borrowing costs raised doubts that spending on AI infrastructure might slow.

why it matters

The gap between a sharp profit jump and falling share prices suggests the market is pricing in future demand rather than past results. For Micron, SanDisk and SK Hynix, DRAM and NAND pricing and the pace of data-center investment remain the main drivers.

market impact

Memory chips and AI infrastructure: shifting sentiment in the sector, pressure on CXMT shares

tags

instruments