Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) Shares Up 13.6% After Analyst Upgrade

Sandisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) rose 13.6% during mid-day trading on Monday after Wall Street Zen upgraded the stock from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating. The company traded as high as $663.67 and last traded at $654.63. Approximately 13,619,576 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 22% from the average daily volume of 17,460,211 shares. The stock had previously closed at $576.25.

A number of other equities analysts also recently weighed in on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Sandisk from $230.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 15th. Mizuho set a $600.00 price target on Sandisk in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on Sandisk from $280.00 to $490.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Royal Bank Of Canada reissued a “sector perform” rating and issued a $650.00 target price on shares of Sandisk in a report on Friday. Finally, Raymond James Financial upgraded Sandisk from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $725.00 price target for the company in a report on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $508.85.

Insider Transactions at Sandisk

In other news, Director Necip Sayiner sold 1,271 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $195.14, for a total transaction of $248,022.94. Following the sale, the director owned 3,479 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $678,892.06. This trade represents a 26.76% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.21% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Sandisk

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Sandisk in the third quarter worth $1,970,388,000. State Street Corp bought a new position in Sandisk in the third quarter valued at about $491,053,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new position in Sandisk in the third quarter worth about $297,293,000. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new stake in shares of Sandisk during the 3rd quarter valued at about $190,425,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Sandisk during the 3rd quarter valued at about $163,057,000.

Sandisk Stock Up 13.6%

The company has a current ratio of 3.11, a quick ratio of 1.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06. The stock has a market cap of $95.95 billion and a P/E ratio of -86.26. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $308.87 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $179.60.

Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $6.20 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.31 by $2.89. Sandisk had a negative net margin of 11.66% and a positive return on equity of 10.11%. The business had revenue of $3.03 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.67 billion. The firm’s revenue was up 61.2% compared to the same quarter last year.

Sandisk Company Profile

SanDisk Corporation offers flash storage solutions. The Company designs, develops and manufactures data storage solutions in a range of form factors using flash memory, controller, firmware and software technologies. The Company operates through flash memory storage products segment. Its solutions include a range of solid state drives (SSD), embedded products, removable cards, universal serial bus (USB), drives, wireless media drives, digital media players, and wafers and components. It offers SSDs for client computing applications, which encompass desktop computers, notebook computers, tablets and other computing devices.