Sandisk fell 10% and Western Digital dropped 15% in premarket trading, while oil rose, European equities edged higher and Alphabet launched a bond sale of as much as $25 billion.
U.S. stock-index futures were mixed ahead of the open, with Dow futures up 0.25%, S&P 500 futures up 0.16% and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.56%, as weakness in storage-chip names weighed on technology sentiment. Premarket losses were steep across the group: Sandisk fell 10% after guiding next-quarter revenue to $10.3 billion to $10.8 billion, below market expectations; Western Digital dropped 15%, SK Hynix fell nearly 7% and Micron Technology lost more than 4%. Sandisk said on its earnings call that it has signed long-term NBM agreements with eight customers spanning data centers and edge computing, with remaining performance obligations of $91.1 billion. The company expects NBM contract-related bit shipments to account for more than 50% of total shipments in fiscal 2027. Elsewhere, commodities were firmer. WTI crude futures rose 1.48% to $76.332 a barrel and Brent crude futures gained 1.62% to $80.739. Spot gold climbed 0.56% to $4,270.51 an ounce, while spot silver slipped 0.56% to $61.67 an ounce. Europe’s main equity benchmarks posted modest gains, with the FTSE 100 up 0.17%, the CAC 40 up 0.69% and the DAX 30 up 0.21%. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is reportedly pushing hard to raise 2nm output to meet demand for Apple’s A20 Pro processor, but a DRAM shortage has left it holding $1 billion worth of Apple processors that cannot complete final packaging until DRAM arrives. Elon Musk said one of the biggest bottlenecks in the AI boom is memory, with storage supply growing about 20% a year against demand growth of 200% or more. In credit markets, Alphabet, Google’s parent, launched a 10-part U.S. dollar investment-grade bond sale with maturities ranging from two years to 40 years, seeking to raise as much as $25 billion. In metals, Democratic Republic of the Congo banned exports of copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate, helping lift London copper futures 0.63% to $14,238.0 a ton and COMEX copper futures 0.92% to 6.7895 cents a pound. One market view cited in the report said Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh is prepared to raise rates if inflation data due in coming weeks runs hot and markets further increase expectations for tightening.