It’s been a stock picker’s year so far in 2026. Certain themes and categories are playing out, beating other areas of the market.
One winning theme is data storage and memory companies. This is due to AI datacenter growth, which is plowing ahead at full speed, as shown in the earnings and fundamentals.
Let’s take a deeper look at three great, hi-flying storage and memory stocks that are seeing big institutional inflows.
There’s a bottleneck affecting high-bandwidth memory chips that could last until 2030. That means relentless demand and cramped supply will keep suppliers thriving.
The first stock is Micron Technology, Inc. (MU), a major manufacturer of DRAM and NAND flash memory. It has a $440 billion market capitalization and has gained 48% so far this year.
Institutions began buying in mass last June. It hasn’t really stopped since.
That makes sense considering the fundamental picture:
Source: FactSet
But the latest quarterly guidance is the story. Micron sees EPS of $19.15 compared to street expectations of $12.03 and forecasts sales of $33.5 billion versus a consensus of $24.3 billion. It’s one of the biggest beats and raises I’ve seen in years.
Next is NAND flash developer SanDisk Corporation (SNDK). Its products like memory cards, flash drives, and solid-state drives are also in high demand from the memory and storage bottleneck.
The flurry of institutional inflows to this $125 billion market cap company has been stunning:
With Big Money involved, it’s no surprise this stock jumped nearly 1,200%.
The fundamentals help tell the story:
Source: FactSet
The average selling price of SanDisk products for fiscal 2026 last year was $54.90. Today it’s $110.20. And for fiscal 2027, it’s estimated at $139.80. Those are eye-opening numbers.
The last storage and memory stock worth considering is Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (STX). It’s a $97 billion market cap company focusing on hard disk drives.
Institutions have helped push this stock up over 371% in the last year. The inflow pattern is clear:
Even better, the data indicates the trend could keep going. The average selling price for Seagate in fiscal 2027 ($274.95) is expected to be 27.5% higher than 2026 ($215.49).
Fundamentals again reflect a strong business:
Source: FactSet
STX has high expectations from analysts. But the data shows they might be too low.
Stocks follow earnings, so the wisdom goes. But in the case of institutional outliers, earnings follow stocks.
Finding the flows helps separate you from the pack. The highlighted storage and memory stocks show the power of money flows.
If you are a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) or a serious investor, take your investing to the next level and follow our free weekly MoneyFlows insights.
Disclosure: the author holds no positions in MU, SNDK, or STX at the time of publication.
Lucas is a well-versed equity investor and educator. He currently is co-founder of research and analytics firm, MAPsignals.com, which focuses on finding outlier stocks by following the Big Money.