U.S. equity futures opened higher on Wednesday, led by technology names and a notable rebound in memory and storage stocks. The Nasdaq Composite jumped roughly 0.8% at the open, outpacing gains in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average as investors rotated back into chipmakers and data-storage suppliers.
Among individual movers, Micron Technology climbed more than 6% while SanDisk-branded shares and Western Digital each advanced—SanDisk up around 6% and Western Digital about 4%. The strength reflected renewed optimism over demand for DRAM and NAND flash, industries that have oscillated between oversupply and the occasional sharp snapback as data-center spending and AI workloads reshape corporate procurement.
Not all technology names benefited. Ride-hailing firm Lyft plunged more than 15% after reporting fourth-quarter 2025 revenue that fell short of market expectations. The miss highlighted lingering execution risks for high-growth, loss-making platforms and underlined investor sensitivity to top-line momentum even as macro sentiment improves for certain cyclical tech segments.
The early-session pattern — a concentrated advance among memory-related stocks alongside idiosyncratic weakness in gig-economy names — is consistent with a market that is refining bets across subsectors rather than mounting a broad-based risk-on move. Memory equities are particularly reactive to shifts in corporate data-center investment cycles and inventory dynamics among device makers, while platform companies remain vulnerable to single-quarter disappointments that can meaningfully alter growth trajectories.
For global investors, the episode is a reminder of two persistent themes shaping markets in 2026: the reconfiguration of demand toward cloud and AI infrastructure, which supports selective hardware names; and the continued premium placed on predictable revenue growth in consumer-facing tech. Traders will watch subsequent earnings and order-book data for confirmation that the memory rebound is sustainable and not merely a short-term re-pricing.
Market participants will also parse upcoming macro prints and central-bank signals for clues about the duration of low-funding-cost conditions that have underpinned recent equity gains. If policy expectations shift, the relative performance gap between cyclical hardware suppliers and high-growth platform stocks could widen further, prompting fresh rotations within the tech complex.