Why this memory stock just soared 600%

Despite drawing relatively few headlines, Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) stock has been one of the best-performing large-cap stocks in the last 12 months. Indeed, WDC share price increased 612% from $41.78 to $297.73 over the previous 52 weeks, and the firm’s valuation shot up from about $14 billion to over $100 billion.

Considering the scale of the rally and the fact that demand arising from artificial intelligence (AI) companies has been a major driver of the upsurge, Western Digital appears, at face value, at risk of a correction in April 2026.

Why Western Digital stock just rallied 10% in a day

Despite this, however, WDC stock’s performance during the most recent session – a daily rise of 10.07% – it would appear that the equity’s ascendance is far from over.

To begin with, the most recent rally was driven by double tailwinds coming from Bernstein. Specifically, analyst Mark Newman showed his unambiguous bullishness by assigning a ‘Buy’ rating to Western Digital while upgrading the 12-month price target for the stock from $170 to $340.

Such a change means that the Wall Street expert effectively altered his prediction for WDC shares from a 43% drop from the latest close to a 14% upsurge.

The fact that Newman explicitly cited AI demand for storage as the reason for the optimism also helped the latest surge, as there has been a growing anxiety among investors about the sustainability of the technology rally that started in earnest with the late 2022 public release of ChatGPT.

Wall Street sets Western Digital stock price for the next 12 months

Elsewhere, Bernstein’s bullishness is aligned with the overall Wall Street attitude toward Western Digital stock. Overall, institutional experts consider WDC shares to be a ‘Strong Buy’ and, on average, forecast a 9.89% rally to $327.17, per the data Finbold retrieved from TipRanks on April 2.

Similarly, nearly every rating revision issued in recent months has been bullish with price forecasts ranging from $300 – in the case of Argus Research – to $420 – in the case of Cantor Fitzgerald – if attached to ‘Buy’ ratings.

Simultaneously, even the two non-bullish assessments were ‘Hold,’ not ‘Sell’ ratings. Both of these were assigned in early February and came from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Susquehanna.

Why Western Digital stock remains at risk of a major crash in 2026

Still, though the attitude is overwhelmingly optimistic, it is worth noting that some room for caution remains. While the AI boom appears to still be at play – and, thus, Western Digital’s main tailwinds remain intact – 2026 saw multiple hints that investors are slowly losing confidence.

For example, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) – a centrally-positioned blue-chip – suffered the worst start to a year in the XXI century in the first quarter (Q1) and the semiconductor giant Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) wiped $260 billion from its market capitalization in a single session after publishing an otherwise blockbuster earnings report.

Additionally, President Donald Trump’s re-escalation of the Iran war – officially announced on Wednesday evening – had an immediate and dire impact on the market as, between supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures, and actual hardware losses, nearly every industry is set to face strong headwinds.

Lastly, Western Digital stock’s own performance shows signs that the rally might not be entirely stable. Specifically, by press time in the extended session between April 1 and April 2, WDC corrected a negative 3.90% to its press time price of $286.11.

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