Business
Sandisk Gets Cheaper Despite Stock Jump
Sandisk’s latest earnings report sent its already-soaring stock price up another 10% by Friday afternoon. But the memory-chip maker’s explosive earnings growth is actually making its stock cheaper.
That’s good news for a company whose market capitalization had already risen by 15 times since its split from Western Digital, which took effect in February of last year. Such a run tends to make stocks a lot more expensive relative to their earnings power. But Sandisk’s fiscal second-quarter report late Thursday made it clear that soaring demand for flash memory is boosting both the top and bottom line. Sandisk reported adjusted per-share earnings of $6.20 for the December-ending period compared with $1.23 for the same period last year.
The company’s projection also showed that per-share earnings could more than double just during the March-ending quarter. That compelled Wall Street analysts to push up their own estimates. Sandisk is now expected to earn $62.68 per share in the current calendar year, compared with the consensus estimate of $29.24 before Thursday’s report, according to FactSet data.