Don’t Assume Micron Will Share SanDisk’s Fate. Here's Why.

For most of this year, investors have treated memory stocks as one big trade. When SanDisk (SNDK) falls, Micron (MU) falls. When Western Digital (WDC) drops, Micron drops with it, often on days with no Micron news at all. The whole group has swung together, soaring through the first half of 2026 until peaking in June, and then selling off hard for most of July. Sandisk was cut in half from its peak, and Western Digital slid too. The question now is whether Micron is destined for the same fate, or whether the market is wrong to ship it with the rest.

The fear driving the sell-off is not anything new. Memory has always been cyclical, and prices crash once supply catches up with demand. That concern grew when SK Hynix (SKHY) signalled a big jump in spending, and China’s memory makers kept ramping up cheap supply. Investors, remembering the brutality of past memory downturns, started punishing memory stocks, including Micron.