Goldman Sachs raised its 12-month target price for Kioxia to 116,000 yen, while giving a key signal: the NAND price increase cycle may extend at least until mid-2027.

The reason is not complicated. AI data center construction continues to advance, and underlying storage chips are in rigid demand. The tighter the supply-demand balance, the stronger the pricing power of upstream manufacturers. This is also the basis for Goldman Sachs' confidence in maintaining a buy rating.
But the macro level does not cooperate. Fed Chairman Walsh still emphasizes the need to push inflation back to the 2% target. The core PCE increase is about 3.4%. Combined with market expectations of further tightening of monetary policy, gold prices have fallen below $4,000 per ounce, with a second-quarter decline of about 14%, the worst performance since 2013.
In other words, on one side is the AI-driven long-term storage bull expectation, and on the other side is the high interest rate environment caused by the hawkish stance of global central banks. In the coming years, which of the industry fundamentals and the interest rate cycle will prevail may be the core variable that determines the performance of related assets.