On Thursday, the top traded US stock by volume was Micron Technology (MU), which closed down 1.31% with $310.3 billion in turnover. The memory chip sector broadly declined as brokerages including Citigroup and Jefferies lowered their price targets for SanDisk Corp. (SNDK).
The second most active stock was SPX Technologies (SPXC), which rose 6.14% to close at $279.25 billion in volume, partially recovering losses from Wednesday. News emerged that SpaceX plans to build its own power plant to support a massive semiconductor manufacturing facility being co-developed with Tesla in Texas. Riley Trettel, who oversees SpaceX's energy and data center development, stated at a public meeting in Grimes County, Texas, on Wednesday: "We are bringing our own electricity. We will build a natural gas power plant and a large battery array to store power." Analyst Alexander Potter from Piper Sandler forecasts SpaceX's capital expenditure will rise to $65 billion next year, up $17 billion from his previous estimate. He also lowered the price target for SPX Technologies from $156 to $140, maintaining a "Neutral" rating.
NVIDIA (NVDA) ranked third, closing down 0.20% with $248.68 billion in volume. Media reports on Thursday indicated that NVIDIA is considering reducing high-bandwidth memory configurations for its Rubin Ultra graphics processor. Additionally, CEO Jensen Huang announced the formal launch of the open-source model Alpamayo 2 Super for autonomous vehicles, which is expected to become a strong support for self-driving taxis, trucks, shuttles, delivery vehicles, and tractors in handling long-tail scenarios.
SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) fell 6.81% to $239.47 billion in volume, ranking fourth. Citigroup analyst Asiya Merchant cut the price target for SanDisk from $2500 to $2100 while maintaining a Buy rating. On the same day, Jefferies lowered its target from $3000 to $1750. SanDisk's fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter earnings report showed strong results, but the company's guidance was weak. Analysts believe the key reason for the stock's decline was not the Q4 performance itself, but revenue guidance that fell short of market expectations. The adjusted EPS guidance range was roughly in line with consensus, while the gross margin guidance was roughly flat quarter-over-quarter, showing signs of peaking.
Microsoft (MSFT) rose 2.54% to $175.27 billion in volume, ranking fifth. The company inaugurated its largest data center in India on Thursday, located in Hyderabad, with the Adani Group and HDFC Bank as early users. This new facility expands Microsoft's cloud service regions in India to four, including existing centers in Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai, further solidifying its position as the largest cloud computing provider in the country.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) gained 1.50% to $117.95 billion in volume, ranking seventh. Rosenblatt Securities raised its price target for AMD from $665 to $700 on Thursday.
Western Digital (WDC) plunged 13.03% to $72.75 billion in volume, ranking twelfth. Both SanDisk and Western Digital delivered strong quarterly results, but Goldman Sachs noted that high market expectations made it difficult for their stocks to benefit from the strong performance. BNP Paribas raised its price target for Western Digital from $660 to $700.
AppLovin Corporation (APP) tumbled 19.66% to $51.63 billion in volume, ranking eighteenth. The company's fiscal second-quarter earnings, for the period ending June 30, showed revenue of $1.92 billion, a 53% year-over-year increase, but still below the analyst consensus estimate of $1.94 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $3.76, slightly above the market consensus of $3.75. Net profit reached $1.27 billion, a sharp rise of 55% from $820 million a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA was $1.61 billion, up 58% year-over-year. However, the market was alarmed that this performance not only missed Wall Street expectations but also fell short of the company's own internal guidance. Co-founder and CEO Adam Foroughi admitted during the earnings call that the company's gaming-focused advertising business is heavily reliant on performance improvements from its AI model. Each substantial iteration of the model allows advertisers to invest more budget while maintaining target ad spend returns. However, in the past second quarter, these model performance leaps did not materialize as expected.
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