The AI Trade Is Back On. Why Sandisk Stock Is Rising Before Big Tech Earnings.

Shares of memory-card maker Sandisk have surged 450% this year, powered higher by the AI boom. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Key Points

Shares of memory-card supplier Sandisk jumped in premarket trading on Wednesday as the artificial intelligence trade rebounded.
South Korean chip maker SK Hynix reported stellar third-quarter earnings and said it expects demand to outstrip supply through 2030.
The tech rebound was also driven by Anthropic filing for an initial public offering on Monday ahead of a mid-November listing.

The artificial intelligence trade is back in style —and it’s perfect timing, seeing as three Big Tech companies that are plowing hundreds of billions of dollars into AI are about to post earnings.

The market’s go-to chip and memory stocks were rising Wednesday, suggesting investors are once again feeling bullish about AI following a three-week spell when the tech boom looked like it could fizzle out.

Shares of memory-card supplier Sandisk jumped 4.9% ahead of the opening bell. Chip maker Intel added 2% and chips and networking company Marvell gained 1.8%.

Advanced Micro Devices, Coherent, Corning, Lumentum, Micron, Super Micro Computer, and Western Digital were also rising in premarket trading.

Created with Highcharts 9.0.1SandiskSource: FactSet

Created with Highcharts 9.0.12026Oct.02505007501,0001,2501,5001,7502,0002,250$2,500

Those are some of Wall Street’s go-to AI plays, so the rebound bodes well for the broader market ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision and a slew of Big Tech earnings. Futures tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were trading 0.4% higher on Wednesday.

A couple of catalysts have driven the recent tech rebound. The most obvious is Anthropic’s IPO filing, which came on Monday ahead of a mid-November listing. The Claude developer could quickly become a bellwether for the entire AI trade.

Memory stocks including Sandisk and Micron got some additional good news early Wednesday after South Korean chip maker SK Hynix reported stellar third-quarter earnings and said it expects demand to outstrip supply through 2030.

All that comes ahead of the most crucial set of earnings of the quarter. Google parent Alphabet and IT company Microsoft are set to post their results on Wednesday, with online retailer Amazon due up on Thursday.

If the megacap tech companies all stick to their capital-spending guidance, this AI rally will have room to run.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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