Why SanDisk Shares Jumped

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of memory chip maker SanDisk (NAS: SNDK) surged 14% today after its quarterly results and outlook topped Wall Street expectations.

So what: The stock has been sliding on management's warning in April that demand was lagging production, but a second-quarter beat -- EPS of $0.21 versus the consensus of $0.18 -- coupled with an upbeat second-half outlook eases some of those concerns. Improving demand of late from business customers and from overseas markets is helping boost memory chip prices, giving investors decent hopes for prolonged turnaround.

Now what: Management expects revenue of $1.15 billion-$1.25 billion for the third quarter and sees gross margins stabilizing in the range of 26%-30% for the fourth quarter. "We believe that strengthening industry fundamentals and our expanding portfolio of solutions will contribute to improving financial results in the second half of 2012," President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. With the stock still off more than 20% over the past six months and trading at a forward P/E of 12, there might be some room left to bet on that bullishness.

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At the time thisarticle was published Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

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