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

Shares of Sandisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) rose 13.6% 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.

Other equities analysts have also issued reports about the stock. China Renaissance started coverage on shares of Sandisk in a research report on Friday, December 5th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $322.00 price target for the company. Wells Fargo & Company lifted 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. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their price target on Sandisk from $300.00 to $580.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 14th. Zacks Research cut Sandisk from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, January 22nd. Finally, Wedbush boosted their price objective on Sandisk from $600.00 to $740.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Sandisk has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $508.85.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Necip Sayiner sold 1,271 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $195.14, for a total transaction of $248,022.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 3,479 shares in the company, valued at approximately $678,892.06. This represents a 26.76% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.21% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SNDK. New York State Teachers Retirement System bought a new position in Sandisk in the 3rd quarter worth about $13,546,000. Sage Rhino Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Sandisk in the third quarter valued at approximately $587,000. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Sandisk in the third quarter valued at approximately $514,000. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new position in Sandisk in the third quarter worth approximately $7,046,000. Finally, HB Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Sandisk in the third quarter worth approximately $348,000.

Sandisk Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a quick ratio of 1.92 and a current ratio of 3.11. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $308.87 and a 200 day simple moving average of $179.60. The company has a market capitalization of $95.95 billion and a PE ratio of -86.26.

Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) last issued its 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. The business had revenue of $3.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.67 billion. Sandisk had a positive return on equity of 10.11% and a negative net margin of 11.66%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 61.2% compared to the same quarter last year.

About Sandisk

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.