Cathie Wood Bullish on Memory Chips, Bank of America Warns It's Not Time to Buy Risk Assets

On October 19, Cathie Wood, founder of ARK Invest, stated that memory chips have entered a buying zone, believing that the impact of rising memory prices and declining sales of electronic devices has been partially reflected in stock prices. Michael Hartnett, Chief Investment Strategist at Bank of America Global Research, pointed out that the end of market sell signals does not mean it is time to buy, as two major prerequisites for returning to risk assets have not yet been met. The price increase of memory chips is mainly affected by AI servers occupying production capacity, with manufacturers shifting more capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DDR5, leading to a tightening of consumer-grade memory supply. TrendForce data shows that in the first and second quarters of 2026, DRAM contract prices are expected to rise by 90%-95% and 58%-63% quarter-on-quarter, respectively, while NAND Flash contract prices are expected to rise by 55%-60% and 70%-75%. The soaring storage costs are beginning to impact the consumer electronics supply chain, with IDC data indicating that global smartphone shipments are expected to decline by 22% year-on-year to 255.3 million units in the third quarter of 2026. Storage manufacturers benefit from price increases, while end brands face the dual challenges of rising costs and pressured sales. Future attention should be paid to whether the increase in DRAM/NAND contract prices continues to narrow, whether the decline in smartphone and PC shipments can improve, whether the proportion of storage in the total material cost of terminals has peaked, and whether storage manufacturers will reallocate capacity to consumer-grade products.