Surging 2600% in one year, SanDisk joins the Nasdaq-100 Index

From the brink of losses to earning $800 million in net profit in a single quarter—SanDisk achieved this in less than two years. Recall that the memory chip industry was still deep in a severe downturn in 2023: NAND flash prices had plunged below cost, and virtually every manufacturer was operating at a loss. Gross margin surged from around 32% to 50.9%, meaning SanDisk’s profit per memory chip nearly doubled—not due to cost-cutting, but because selling prices themselves rose sharply. SanDisk’s surge is no isolated case. The entire memory chip industry is undergoing a rare upcycle. The core driver behind this rally is the explosive buildout of AI infrastructure. Global tech giants—including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and ByteDance—are aggressively expanding data centers and procuring GPUs and servers. Every AI server requires massive amounts of high-speed storage to feed data. Training a large language model routinely demands tens—or even hundreds—of terabytes of storage. This has directly boosted demand for enterprise SSDs and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). In 2025, HBM shipments grew 70% year-on-year. Memory chipmakers have shifted production capacity toward premium products; manufacturing HBM and enterprise SSDs now takes clear priority over standard consumer memory modules. As supply concentrates on high-end segments, consumer-market supply tightens—and prices surge across the board: DDR4 memory prices rose 1,800%, DDR5 jumped 500%, and NAND flash climbed 300%. Samsung’s NAND products alone posted over 100% growth in a single quarter. SanDisk’s core business sits squarely at the center of this trend. As a global leader in NAND flash and SSDs, its enterprise SSD offerings are directly benefiting from data center expansion. The company is also developing a next-generation high-capacity SSD architecture codenamed “Stargate,” paired with its latest BiCS8 QLC NAND flash technology—explicitly targeting the massive data storage needs of the AI era. UBS noted in its latest report that SanDisk’s inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 Index “further confirms the foundational role of memory hardware in the AI era.” For SanDisk, inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 is more than just an honor. The Nasdaq-100 is one of the world’s most closely watched tech stock indices, tracked by ETFs and passive funds managing over $600 billion in assets. Once added, these funds must buy SanDisk shares proportionally. That means a wave of guaranteed incremental buying. For a company that has been independently listed for just over a year, this significantly boosts stock liquidity and institutional ownership. Wall Street remains highly optimistic about SanDisk’s outlook. Mizuho raised its price target to $1,000; Bernstein went even higher—to $1,250. At current share prices, analysts see substantial further upside potential. However, there’s a well-known rule across the memory chip industry: when prices rise sharply, they often fall just as hard. Memory chips are highly standardized commodities—their prices are driven almost entirely by supply-demand dynamics. When demand surges and supply tightens, prices can multiply several times within months—but if demand slows or manufacturers collectively ramp up capacity, prices can plummet just as quickly.

PPG’s full-year revenue held flat at $15.9 billion, while net profit surged 17% to $1.6 billion

In 2025, the Group reported EBITDA of $2.631 billion, up 9.26% year-on-year. Operating profit totaled $1.587 billion, up 15.25% year-on-year. Net income reached $1.571 billion, up 17% year-on-year. Net profit margin improved from 8.5% in the prior year to 9.9%. Adjusted net income amounted to $1.722 billion, down 7.0% year-on-year. Amid a challenging macroeconomic environment, the Company delivered full-year earnings per share (EPS) of $6.92, and adjusted EPS of $7.58—a 4% decline year-on-year. EBITDA margins across all business segments stood at 19%. These results reflect strong sales performance driven by our technologically advanced products and powerful brands, and we achieved record results across multiple businesses—including aerospace coatings, protective & marine coatings, and packaging coatings. In 2025, we demonstrated exceptional adaptability amid a challenging macro backdrop: sales volume and pricing increased across all four quarters, delivering 2% organic sales growth. We generated $1.9 billion in operating cash flow, with a free cash flow yield of 5%. During the year, we repurchased approximately $790 million worth of shares—about 3% of our outstanding shares. Including dividends, we returned $1.4 billion to shareholders in 2025. PPG Industrial Coatings—Key Factors Affecting Q4 2025 Operating Performance PPG’s net sales for Q4 2025 totaled $3.914 billion, up 5.0% year-on-year. Organic sales rose 3% year-on-year—the highest quarterly growth rate of the year—driven by broad-based growth across three business segments. Overall selling prices rose 1% year-on-year, though gains from structural price increases were partially offset by declines in index-based customer contract pricing. Overall sales volume increased 2% versus Q4 2024. Net sales also included a 4% benefit from foreign exchange translation and a 2% reduction due to divestitures. Sales growth was primarily driven by aerospace coatings, protective & marine coatings, and architectural coatings in Mexico. Meanwhile, market share gains in our industrial coatings segment offset declines in automotive refinish coatings and architectural coatings in Europe and the Middle East. OEM automotive coatings net sales rose 6%, marking the second consecutive quarter of growth above industry averages. Both net sales and segment income for aerospace coatings hit new quarterly highs in Q4 2025. Adjusted diluted EPS for Q4 2025 was $1.51, compared to reported diluted EPS of $1.34. Across all PPG business segments, operating margin stood at 18%, down 40 basis points year-on-year—mainly reflecting margin improvements in industrial coatings and global architectural coatings, partially offset by lower margins in the performance coatings segment. Net income for Q4 2025 totaled $302 million, up 15-fold year-on-year. Adjusted net income for Q4 2025 was $341 million, down 9.0% year-on-year.

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