Nasdaq falls 2.4% as tech selling persists, storage earnings loom
Key Facts
The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.4% during trading on Thursday, October 22, 2026, as selling pressure spread to the broader market ahead of Western Digital's earnings after the close. According to the Associated Press, the index was down that much at 12:56 p.m. Eastern time. The session's losses follow a week of waning appetite for semiconductor stocks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling more than 11% in the week ended October 16, according to Reuters. The agency linked the faltering of AI-related trades that week to a high inflation reading. That reading bolstered bets on interest rate increases, providing the backdrop for a selloff in chip and storage companies ahead of their earnings releases.
Storage stocks had posted simultaneous losses during the October 13 session, at an earlier stage of the selloff, according to Reuters. SanDisk shares fell 4.3% at the time, while Seagate Technology dropped 5.9%. Western Digital declined 5.8% in the same session, with the pressure spanning companies operating in different parts of the storage sector. Monday's session on October 19 saw a rebound in Micron Technology shares, which rose 4.2% during trading, according to the agency. That increase followed a loss of about 15% the previous week, putting Monday's gains in the context of a partial recovery from a larger weekly decline.
The companies caught in the selloff have different operations, despite falling under the memory and storage umbrella. According to Western Digital's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company focuses on its existing hard disk drive business. Its flash memory business, meanwhile, moved to SanDisk, formerly a wholly owned Western Digital subsidiary before becoming independent. Against the backdrop of technological competition in the memory sector, Investing.com reported that China's ChangXin Memory Technologies had announced significant progress in a new chip architecture. The architecture aims to increase memory density, adding a technological development to the competitive landscape surrounding companies in the sector.
On operating performance, SanDisk reported revenue of $8.97 billion in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year 2026, up 51% from the previous quarter, according to its earnings release. The company attributed that growth to higher sales volumes and prices, with prices contributing more to the quarterly increase. It said in its statement that growth came "approximately one-third from higher volumes and two-thirds from higher prices." The sales increase thus coincided with improved pricing, which accounted for the larger share of revenue growth during the period. Micron had already reported its fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 results, posting revenue of $54.23 billion, according to the company's statement. That compares with revenue of $41.46 billion in the third quarter of the same fiscal year. It also exceeded revenue of $11.32 billion in the corresponding period of fiscal year 2025, with both the quarterly and annual comparisons showing an expansion in the company's business during the reported period.
The sector's next earnings releases begin with Western Digital's results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, scheduled for after the market closes on Thursday, October 22, 2026, according to the company's announcement. Seagate will then report results for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2027 after the U.S. market closes on Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Seagate's scheduled release adds another storage company earnings announcement the following week, ahead of SanDisk's earnings call. SanDisk has set Thursday, October 29, 2026, for its earnings call covering the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. The call is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Pacific time, according to the company's earnings date announcement.