Memory stocks have been the hottest trade of the year, but one short-seller says not all companies in the space should be valued as winners of the AI boom.
Kerrisdale Capital revealed a short position Everspin Technologies, a chip maker whose stock is up 250% this year. In the firm’s view, the market is incorrectly valuing the stock as AI winner when it actually operates in a different market entirely. It shared a detailed short report on the stock on Tuesday, with the stock down by about 2% following its release.
“MRAM is hardly cutting edge,” Kerrisdale stated. “The technology has been commercially available for two decades.” It added that the company’s magnetoresistive random-access memory products are complicated and expensive to scale.
The memory stock frenzy that’s lifted stocks like Sandisk to enormous triple-digit gains is the newest frontier of the AI trade. It’s been sparked by the next leg of AI development and the pivot from training to inference, which requires more memory storage.
Data from Apewisdom shows that retail traders have embraced Everspin as they pile into memory stocks and rush to gain exposure through funds such as the newly launched Roundhill Memory ETF, which trades under the symbol DRAM.
Kerrisdale sees Everspin’s surge in 2026 as a sign that investors should approach with caution, and also that they should scrutinize the sector more closely.
“The stock has soared 300% in a matter of weeks as speculative investors who seemingly can’t tell the difference between MRAM, DRAM, or a Dodge Ram pile into anything remotely associated with ‘memory and AI,” the short seller added. “In reality, Everspin is not a meaningful beneficiary of the hyperscale AI infrastructure buildout driving today’s semiconductor boom.”
The report said that Everspin’s primary market is not AI builders, but something more niche: casino slot machines. In Kerrisdale’s view, all of this suggests that “Everspin has become swept into a broader market mania, and recent trading action bears all the hallmarks of speculative momentum run amok”
Everspin did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
