This article originally appeared in NerdWallet's investing newsletter, the Nerdy Investor. You can subscribe for free here.
Have you shopped for a new laptop or smartphone lately? It’s getting rough out there.
A survey published earlier this year by Gartner projected average PC prices would rise by 17% this year, and average phone prices by 13%, with cheaper models paradoxically seeing the biggest price increases.
Why? Two words: Memory crisis.
The price of computer memory chips (called random-access memory, or RAM) is going through the roof because of skyrocketing demand from AI data centers. And while that’s bad for shoppers, it’s good for shareholders of certain memory chip stocks and ETFs.
» Struggling to afford a new computer? We have an article about sales tax holidays for electronics.
Why does AI need so much memory, anyway?
If you’ve been playing with AI for a while, you may remember that chatbots used to lack object permanence, like a newborn. Up until a couple of years ago, even the best AI models could remember, at best, the last few messages you’d sent them. They had zero recollection of previous conversations.
Now, it’s different. AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI have realized that consumers want to be able to have long conversations and tackle complex projects with their AI models, without having the models lose coherence and forget what they’re doing midway through. And consumers want to be able to come back to old conversations and projects over multiple days.
That means the models need to be able to “remember” things, to put it anthropomorphically. Or, more accurately, the models need to have much longer context windows.
Hence the RAM bottleneck. Memory chip makers are using up all their production capacity fulfilling huge orders of high-end chips for AI data centers, which is starving the consumer electronics supply chain (particularly the budget segment) of normal memory chips. And industry experts only expect the bottleneck to get worse in the next couple of years. In a recent earnings call, Samsung CFO Soon-Chul Park said that "the supply shortage will persist through 2028."
Again, this is bad for anyone who wants a cheap phone or laptop. But it’s great for certain memory chip stocks and ETFs.
» Phones are pricey, but there are ways to save on phone bills: Read about 7 ways to do so
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Top 5 memory chip stocks by 1-year returns
Below is a table of the 5 best-performing stocks in the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), the Tuttle Capital Concentrated Memory Stack ETF (HBMX), the Kurv Memory Select ETF (KMEM) and the Tema Memory ETF (DISK), ranked by one-year returns.
The best-performing memory chip stock by one-year return is Sandisk Corp (SNDK), which is up 3150.61%. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ticker | Company | Performance (Year) | ||
SNDK | Sandisk Corp | 3,150.61% | ||
MU | Micron Technology Inc | 664.33% | ||
WDC | Western Digital Corp | 540.58% | ||
AEHR | Aehr Test Systems | 511.61% | ||
STX | Seagate Technology Holdings Plc | 487.16% | ||
Source: Finviz. Data is current as of August 13, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only. | ||||
These are wild returns, and as we wrote a few weeks ago in the Nerdy Investor newsletter, they’ve propelled some memory chip companies, like Micron, into the trillion-dollar club.
If you're interested in buying these stocks, you'll need a brokerage account. Below is a list of the highest-scoring brokers in our Best Brokers for Online Stock Trading roundup.
But with great returns comes great volatility. These are some of the best-performing stocks in the memory chip subindustry, but others have whipsawed along with investors’ anxieties about whether the AI boom is sustainable. That volatility is reflected in the price of some memory chip ETFs — some of which have made concentrated bets on the wrong chipmakers.
Top 4 memory chip ETFs by YTD performance
Below is a table of the aforementioned set of memory ETFs — the only four non-leveraged ETFs on the market that simply track an index of memory chip stocks — ranked by YTD returns. As you can see, some are up and some are down, and all of them are on the expensive side in terms of expense ratio.
The best-performing memory chip ETF by year-to-date return is Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), which is up 110.85%. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Fund name and symbol | Net Expense Ratio | Performance (YTD) | ||
Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) | 0.65% | 110.85% | ||
Tuttle Capital Concentrated Memory Stack ETF (HBMX) | 0.95% | -1.86% | ||
Tema Memory ETF (DISK) | 0.75% | -21.83% | ||
Kurv Memory Select ETF (KMEM) | 0.65% | -31.78% | ||
Source: Finviz. Data is current as of August 13, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only. | ||||
*DRAM may incur transaction fees through Fidelity and possibly other brokerages. Check out our article on ETF service fees for more info.
» Wondering which brokers are best for ETFs? Check out our roundup of the best ETF platforms
Should you bet on memory stocks or ETFs?
If you’ve read our articles for a while, you’ve heard this spiel from us at least half a dozen times. Many advisors recommend devoting no more than 10% of your portfolio to concentrated positions in individual stocks or thematic ETFs. At the very least, you can likely reduce volatility by making sure that no one position makes up more than 10% of your overall portfolio.
But the fact remains that memory is an enormous bottleneck in the burgeoning AI industry, and the problem is expected to get worse, not better, in the coming years. If you’re OK with taking a risk on some high-volatility stocks, there’s a case for dipping your toes into the RAM stock waters.
Neither the author nor editor owned positions in the aforementioned investments at the time of publication.
Article sources
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- 1.Gartner. Gartner Says Surging Memory Costs Will Reduce Global PC and Smartphone Shipments in 2026. Accessed Aug 12, 2026.
- 2.Investing.com. Earnings call transcript: Samsung Electronics posts record Q2 2026 profit as AI demand surges. Accessed Aug 14, 2026.
