'Wood Sister' Bullish on Memory Chips, BofA Warns Risk Assets Not Yet Ripe for Bottom-Fishing

October 19 — ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood recently stated that memory chips have entered a buying zone, believing that the impact of rapid memory price increases and declining electronic device sales has been partially reflected in stock prices. In contrast, Michael Hartnett, Chief Investment Strategist at BofA Global Research, pointed out that the end of a market sell signal does not mean the buying opportunity has arrived, and neither of the two major prerequisites for returning to risk assets has been met.

The rise in memory chip prices is mainly driven by AI servers crowding out production capacity, with original manufacturers shifting more capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DDR5, leading to tightened supply of consumer-grade memory. TrendForce data shows that in the first and second quarters of 2026, DRAM contract prices rose 90%–95% and 58%–63% quarter-over-quarter, respectively, while NAND Flash contract prices rose 55%–60% and 70%–75%, respectively.

The surge in memory costs has also begun to impact the consumer electronics supply chain. The report cited IDC data stating that global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2026 fell 22% year-over-year to 255.3 million units. Memory manufacturers benefit from price increases, while terminal brands face the dual challenges of rising costs and shipment pressure.

Going forward, key focus areas include whether the magnitude of DRAM/NAND contract price increases continues to narrow, whether the decline in smartphone and PC shipments can improve, whether memory's share of terminal bill-of-materials costs has peaked, and whether memory manufacturers will reallocate capacity to consumer-grade products.