SNDK fell 5.5% on Tuesday to close at $1,991.55, its first meaningful single-day retreat in weeks — yet the stock still finished the week up 21%, still above every analyst target except Cantor Fitzgerald's $2,900, and still trading in territory no Street model had anticipated two months ago.
The options market has grown noticeably more defensive as the rally has extended. The put/call ratio is running at 1.46, above its 20-day average of 1.39 and not far below the 52-week high of 1.51 touched on June 5. That's a sustained elevation, not a one-day spike: the ratio has been above 1.40 for most of the past two weeks, suggesting options traders are systematically hedging rather than chasing the move with calls. Short interest tells a much calmer story — at 6.2% of the free float, it has fallen roughly 20% from its mid-May peak of around 11.4 million shares, and the borrow market remains extraordinarily loose. Availability exceeds 3,200%, meaning shares available to lend dwarf current short positions by a factor of more than 30, and cost to borrow has actually eased back to a trivial 0.13% after a brief spike to 0.45% mid-week. Bears face no structural friction. What they face is a tape that has been punishing short conviction for three straight months.
The analyst community is still in catch-up mode, though the gap has narrowed. Every firm that has moved on SNDK since late April has raised its target — Cantor Fitzgerald at $2,900, Mizuho at $2,200, BofA at $2,100, Barclays upgrading to Overweight with a $2,300 target. Even Morgan Stanley, which only lifted to $1,750 on June 3, is now $240 below the current price. The bull case centers on NAND flash ASP momentum, gross margins approaching 80%, and longer-term supply agreements that reduce cyclicality. EPS momentum factor scores rank in the 92nd percentile over 30 days and the 98th over 90 days — the estimate revision trend has been relentlessly upward. The bear case, as articulated by the sell-side minority, points to potential NAND oversupply, slowing PC demand growth, and a valuation that has outrun traditional metrics. The trailing PE is running at 16.7x and the EV/EBITDA has compressed to 13.2x over the past month as earnings have moved faster than the stock — but with the ORTEX short score sitting at a neutral 36.5 and value factor scores near the bottom quartile, this is not a setup the data would describe as cheap.
Insider selling has been consistent into the rally. CEO David Goeckeler sold 1,569 shares at $1,479 on May 25. CFO Luis Felipe Visoso sold 1,588 shares at $1,542 on May 21. CTO Alper Ilkbahar has made multiple sales across May and June, most recently trimming 2,000 shares across three separate transactions on June 1 at prices around $1,757. The total 90-day net insider value flows into sales territory at roughly $23.8 million. None of these trades are panic-sized relative to total compensation structures, but the pattern is uniform — every named insider has been a seller through the entire leg of the rally, and not one has added shares.
The April 30 earnings print remains the clearest data point for what the stock does around results. SNDK moved 11.5% higher on the day and 25.9% in the five days following — a reaction that rewarded bulls who stayed long into the release rather than fading into it. The next earnings event is confirmed for August 14. The peer group adds further context this week: WDC gained 31.6% on the week and STX added 21.9%, suggesting the storage sector broadly caught a bid — SNDK's 21% weekly gain, while still impressive in absolute terms, no longer stands alone the way it did in prior weeks. With the stock's own consensus now well below where it trades, the August 14 print has become less a debate about whether SNDK deserves a premium and more about whether margins and ASP trends can justify the multiple that the market has already assigned.
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