Flash memory giant suddenly hit with an "attack"! SanDisk's stock once plummeted over 8%. Can the NAND demand myth continue?

On Tuesday Eastern Time, the recently popular storage giant SanDisk faced a short attack, with its stock price dropping over 8% at one point.

Earlier that day, well-known short-selling firm Citron Research announced that it held a short position in the storage chip manufacturer. Citron also detailed its bearish view on SanDisk and emphasized the cyclical pressures facing the storage industry.

This statement was a blow to SanDisk investors, as the previous surge in SanDisk’s stock price was driven by investor bets that the NAND industry could leverage artificial intelligence to generate strong demand and escape cyclical risks.

Since the beginning of this year, SanDisk’s stock has risen 175%, and over the past 12 months, it has increased by more than 1200%.

Citron boldly bearish on SanDisk

Based on Citron’s posts on X, its bearish reasons for SanDisk can be summarized into three points: cyclical pressures in the storage market, increased competition from Samsung, and the exit of long-term investors.

Citron first pointed out that Western Digital, a long-term investor in SanDisk, recently sold a large portion of its SanDisk shares at a price 25% below the current market price, which is a warning sign.

“When TV commentators are banging the table, urging retail investors to jump in, Western Digital sold a significant part of its holdings a few days ago at a 25% discount. Why? Because they know the cycle is about to peak, so they didn’t wait for the alarm to ring.”

Next, Citron discussed the persistent cyclical nature of the NAND industry. It mentioned that similar patterns occurred in 2008, 2012, and 2018, and this time is no different.

“Current supply shortages are only temporary because current capacity has already doubled the 2018 peak. This shortage is just an illusion of supply; it could disappear in a quarterly earnings call.” The firm implied that current supply constraints are temporary.

The firm believes that the market prices SanDisk similarly to Nvidia, but highlights a key difference: “Nvidia has a moat. SanDisk sells ordinary commodities.”

Citron also emphasized the threat from Samsung. It noted that Samsung has historically prioritized market share over profit in the storage cycle—they wait for companies like SanDisk, which sell pure flash memory chips at 50% gross margin, to settle into the status quo, then suddenly change strategy, increase supply, and lower prices.

Furthermore, Citron pointed out that this time Samsung’s threat might be even greater: Samsung recently announced they will not sell any products with less than 50% gross margin and are pushing their best chips into the high-end SSD market that SanDisk relies on. This means Samsung is aggressively capturing high-quality customers with lower prices and newer technology. “And what is the only reason for current supply tightness? Merely a temporary yield issue on another Samsung product line. But this bottleneck is temporary.”

The firm concluded: “Shorting SanDisk stock is just going with the market trend. When the cycle normalizes, the stock price will be even lower.”

SanDisk’s new product upgrades stir the market

Shortly after Citron announced its short position, SanDisk held an online event celebrating its one-year spin-off from Western Digital. The company also launched a new generation of portable SSD products and released a YouTube video highlighting what users can do with extra digital storage space.

However, this new product launch did not satisfy the market; SanDisk’s stock continued to decline. A user on X commented under SanDisk’s official post, “We were all expecting a big announcement, and this is it?”

Now, all eyes are on the public statements of SanDisk executives. They plan to speak at Bernstein’s “Future of Technology Trends” forum on February 25 and will participate in Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference on March 3.

Can NAND escape cyclical fluctuations?

In fact, Citron’s core skepticism about SanDisk’s stock lies in the ongoing memory shortage.

Currently, the entire memory market still faces severe supply shortages. Multiple research firms, including Counterpoint Research, report that DRAM prices surged 40% to 50% in Q4 2025, and TrendForce warns that a 50% or greater increase in memory product prices is becoming a baseline expectation.

However, the memory industry has always been cyclical—periods of shortages followed by oversupply. As Citron notes, this cycle has played out multiple times in the past.

Nevertheless, SanDisk executives stated earlier this month during their earnings call that driven by AI, the NAND market is undergoing a structural transformation, “which is sustainable and will reduce the cyclicality of NAND business, creating higher long-term average profit margins and returns.”

CEO David Goeckeler pointed out that AI is significantly changing storage demand, with data center storage needs expected to grow over 60% by 2026. The supply tightness is expected to persist beyond 2026, supporting pricing power.

This optimistic outlook has led many Wall Street investors to bet that the long-term demand driven by AI, combined with multi-year supply agreements signed by SanDisk, will reduce the NAND industry’s traditional cyclicality and shift the industry toward a more stable, high-margin structure. Under this hope, SanDisk’s stock has risen.

But now, Citron’s high-profile short may have shattered some investors’ expectations for the NAND industry’s prospects. Will SanDisk and the entire storage industry revert to the old cyclical pattern as Citron suggests? We shall see.