SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) shares surged 11.83% to close at $952.50 on Monday, hitting a fresh 52-week peak of $953.41, after the company confirmed it will join the Nasdaq-100 index on April 20, replacing Atlassian. The rally, fueled by robust AI-driven demand for NAND storage and anticipation of the firm's April 30 earnings release, has propelled SanDisk's market capitalization to approximately $140.59 billion.

Sandisk Stock Surge Driven By Nasdaq-100 Inclusion And AI Demand

What the Nasdaq-100 Entry Means for Sandisk Stock

Once Sandisk stock enters the Nasdaq-100, every index-tracking ETF and mutual fund has to buy it before the effective date. Fund managers simply do not get to debate the addition once it goes official, and that forced institutional buying has been driving pre-rebalance positioning all week. SanDisk Corp is replacing Atlassian, whose shares fell more than 62% year-to-date.

Yahoo Finance anchor Josh Lipton stated:

“SanDisk will replace Atlassian Corporation. This will go into effect prior to the market open on Monday, April 20th.”

Jefferies raised its price target on SNDK to $1,000 right after the announcement, pointing to continued pricing strength in the NAND market and also ongoing AI-driven demand, and to expected QLC eSSD shipments to Tier 1 data center customers ahead of the April 30 earnings call. Citi analyst Asiya Merchant also raised her price target to $980 and kept a Buy rating on the shares.

NAND Supply and AI Demand Pushing Memory Stocks Higher

SanDisk is the only pure-play NAND company among the major memory stocks right now, holding about a 13% share of the global NAND market. Competitors like SK Hynix and Micron keep prioritizing High Bandwidth Memory production, and that decision tightens NAND supply and also hands Sandisk stock Nasdaq a direct advantage. The company’s datacenter segment posted revenue of $440 million last quarter, up 76% year over year and also 64% sequentially.

SanDisk CFO Luis Visoso had this to say:

“We believe that the NAND market is going through structural evolution catalyzed by AI. The evolution is more pronounced in data centers, where data growth is accelerating as the temperature of data is rising, token intensity is accelerating, and storage is a critical enabler for inference.”

The Valuation Debate Around Sandisk Stock Nasdaq

Not all analysts share the bullish view on Sandisk stock Nasdaq, though. Seeking Alpha contributor David B. McMillan published a Sell rating on April 13, placing a base-case fair value at $569 per share, well below where SNDK was trading at the time of writing. He argues that the memory sector stays fundamentally cyclical, and that investors price SanDisk shares as a secular growth story when the underlying product remains a commodity.

McMillan stated:

“Current share price is driven by short-term sentiment and FOMO, not sustainable fundamentals.”

New NAND fab capacity does not arrive until around 2028, and that timeline keeps the near-term setup for Sandisk stock Nasdaq looking strong. Still, McMillan’s point holds: the market already knows about the supply squeeze and also appears to have priced that knowledge well above his $569 base case.