Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTHillary RemySun, August 23, 2026 at 7:33 PM GMT+2 5 min readJim Cramer has a reputation for caution when a stock has already run hard. This time, he is telling investors to ignore that instinct entirely, arguing that the usual rules of chip investing may no longer apply.On a recent Mad Money segment, Cramer argued that some of the market's biggest winners this year still have room to climb, even after gains that would normally make him nervous about chasing a rally this late.Cramer says these four memory chip stocks are indispensableCramer named four memory and storage chip makers he calls "indispensable" right now: Micron, SanDisk, Seagate, and Western Digital. "While I acknowledge that I am not early, I do not think I am late," he told viewers, according to CNBC. The numbers behind that call are striking. August 18, SanDisk has surged 653% in 2026, Seagate has climbed 261%, Micron has gained 254%, and Western Digital has risen 211%. Figures that would normally make a value-conscious investor wary of chasing further upside.Cramer tied the rally directly to comments from Elon Musk. "Musk is right: Memory has become the bottleneck," Cramer said, referencing Musk's remarks on SpaceX's second-quarter earnings call about memory supply constraining AI data center buildouts, Yahoo Finance reported.More Micron:Michael Burry increases his bet against popular chip giantBank of America doubles down on Micron stock after AI bombshellMicron stock jumps as investors look beyond GPUs in AI chip tradeCramer's Charitable Trust, the portfolio behind CNBC's Investing Club, recently opened a new position in Micron during a pullback tied to a selloff among South Korean semiconductor stocks. Cramer called Micron his top pick of the group, and he plans to visit the company's Idaho research facility to interview CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.Why Micron and other memory stocks keep climbingThe bull case rests on a genuine shift in the market structure. Memory chips have historically been a boom-and-bust business, since high upfront manufacturing costs push producers to keep making memory chips even after prices fall. Eventually flooding the market and crushing margins.AI data centers appear to be breaking that old pattern, at least for now. Micron's HBM and DRAM memory capacity is sold out through 2027. And AI data centers are projected to now consume roughly 70% of global memory chip production, according to TheStreet report, which also noted that Micron has committed $22 billion in advance cash deposits under customer agreement just to secure future supply –– underscoring how aggressively major customers are locking in future memory supply.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info