Seagate's gross margin jump to 57.8% from 52.7% shows pricing power in a supply-constrained hard-drive market. AI data needs storage, hyperscalers seek capacity, and HAMR packs more terabytes into existing factories; roughly 90% of big-cloud data sits on hard drives. Sales reached $4.2B and next-quarter guidance of $4.8B beats the Street's $4.53B. This cycle looks to be accelerating rather than peaking. Overweight, $1,050 target. x.com  x.com 

Rising memory contract prices strengthen the case for memory stocks still far below their highs. JPMorgan forecasts Q4 DRAM prices up 13% and NAND up 18%; Micron is 28% below its 52-week high, Seagate 44%, Sandisk 47% and Western Digital 55%. x.com 

AI data and content creation could lift Seagate's and Western Digital's cross-cycle earnings even if supply catches up and pressures prices and margins. Western Digital reported hyperscaler demand signals through 2030/31, making 2013-2024 normalized earnings a poor baseline. Still not a huge fan of their stocks given their large premium to memory makers and Toshiba's production ramp. x.com  x.com 

Seagate owns the volume layer where AI training data ends up, nearline HDDs, and that supply tightens every quarter through 2027. Memory makers are capacity-bound, with Hynix and Micron sold out through 2026 and Samsung warning shortages run to 2027+; HBM holds hot data, while cold training data sits on nearline drives that Seagate and Western Digital dominate. Seagate leads HAMR, which packs more data per platter, a real density moat that justifies its premium 16.9x sales and 79 P/E. x.com  … Show more

Seagate is set for another good quarter, with gross margin likely to beat again, as nearline HDD prices rise alongside exabyte growth. Per @NEWS2082680, AI data centers pushed nearline HDD prices up about 10% quarter over quarter in April-June, a huge move. Seagate is growing exabytes through density gains rather than adding heads. x.com 

Seagate and Western Digital trade at a huge multiple premium to other storage and memory, driven by vibes rather than cash flow, and Toshiba's expansion undermines the stable duopoly that justified it. Per @wallstengine, Toshiba plans about $380M to double HDD capacity for AI data centers by FY2027. Toshiba is a generation behind, with ramp issues, and is not a material near-term threat to profits, but the market will price the broken duopoly. The charts are awful. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

Western Digital and Seagate have the clearest long setups in storage because they combine higher margins, low competition risk and no concerns about capex or production expansion. That fits a regime where a sharply higher long end rewards free cash flow and punishes capex without an immediate payoff, after a Warsh press conference that raised doubts over Fed inflation control. The risk is that both keep getting dragged down by the broader memory sector, where DRAM and NAND look stretched. x.com 

Seagate has shown very resilient price action over the last few weeks, with this week's gain double Micron's. x.com 

The valuation gap favors SK hynix and Samsung over Corning, Seagate and Western Digital. Companies trading at 20x are still called cheap while the memory makers trade at 2x; Corning is not cheap on a $4 run rate even with growth, and neither are Seagate or Western Digital. The gap should narrow as memory rises while HDD stalls. x.com  x.com 

Seagate's results suggest AI demand may be changing how storage is valued, beyond a normal cyclical upturn, lifting Seagate, Western Digital and SanDisk. Its gross margin reached 47% and free cash flow $953 million; data center revenue rose 55% to $2.5 billion, nearline capacity is mostly allocated through 2027, and guidance of $3.45 billion revenue and $5.00 EPS beat expectations. After big gains these stocks must keep beating, so Western Digital and SanDisk results need to confirm it. x.com