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Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

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Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#191

Post by paulpauper »

1saadcodes wrote: post #105

500% in a year is just insane. I knew RAM prices were going up, but $3k+ for 128GB of DDR5 makes me wonder how much of this is actually AI demand, and how much is this just manufacturers taking advantage of it. They have done this in the past after all

What is also interesting is no one predicted this in 2022-2025 as LLMs were gaining widespread use. It just suddenly happened--"boom!" memory shortage in mid 2025 to early 2026,and it caught everyone by surprise. It was understood that the biggest bottleneck was "compute", not the memory. Even experts, such as popular AI bloggers, industry leaders, and top podcasters failed to anticipate this. No one on twitter either. I spend a lot of time online and I don't recall, afik, anyone before 2026 saying to buy memory stocks.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#192

Post by allendoerfer »

dietr1ch wrote: post #79
Aditya_Garg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to short anthropic and openai on your beliefs? Would love to be on the other side of this trade.

People think that shorting is an easy way of getting rich when you think a stock will go down, but even if you know it will, getting the timing wrong on it is catastrophic as you'll get unbounded loses while the market fails to correct the issues you are betting against

"I may have been early, but I am not wrong!"

"It's the same thing, Michael! It's the same thing!"

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#194

Post by paulpauper »

This is "the memory shortage that no one saw coming." To the best of my knowledge, no podcasters, bloggers, or experts in AI predicted this or were sounding the alarm of a memory shortage. No one was saying pre-2025 to buy memory/data storage stocks. This goes to show how hard it is to predict. Everyone was saying to buy NVDA, which had done well from 2022-2024, and then stalled out, only to be surpassed by memory stocks like SanDisk, Western Digital, and Micron, which took many by surprise.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#195

Post by zymhan »

forinti wrote: post #6
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #3

The situation is absolutely awful for anybody who needs significant memory or storage (or devices incorporating such). Even people who think they have enough for the next few years already could end up with an unpleasant surprise if they e.g. have a stick or two of RAM go bad or a GPU fry. I have a few machines with aging sticks that I'm hoping will manage to hold out until when/if things improve.

I've been using computers for more than 40 years now and the one component I have never seen fail is RAM. All the other bits in a computer I've seen fail.

You may literally be the only one.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#196

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

dietr1ch wrote: post #79
Aditya_Garg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to short anthropic and openai on your beliefs? Would love to be on the other side of this trade.

People think that shorting is an easy way of getting rich when you think a stock will go down, but even if you know it will, getting the timing wrong on it is catastrophic as you'll get unbounded loses while the market fails to correct the issues you are betting against

As the saying goes...the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#198

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

josefritzishere wrote: post #23

The fake economics of the AI sector are damaging the real economy. This is madness.

Deep down it's all just people telling stories. If the AI sector's story is setting the price, and yours is not, then theirs is the real real one, not yours.

It's a totally broken way to practice economics, but alas, it's ours until we change it.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#199

Post by senderista »

kibwen wrote: post #155
senderista wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are never shortages in a free market, just higher prices.

[flagged]

At a longer timescale than very temporary supply shocks, I believe what I said is correct. The basic point is that if supply contracts, demand must contract as well, which in a free market happens via price increases and in an unfree market happens via shortages (i.e., the inability of buyers to obtain a good at a market-clearing price). If high barriers to entry are relevant in this context (obviously they very much exist in the memory industry!), then please enlighten me how, if you are capable of doing so without unconstructive snark.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#200

Post by HWR_14 »

ncallaway wrote: post #129
cm2187 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the distinction you are making. If you have a massive excess of demand ready to pay any price, and a limited supply, of course the sellers will take advantage, that's how any market works. They can do that because of the lack of supply. Over the long term demand will rationalise and supply will adjust. But in between there is a squeeze, and the right price is the maximum price buyers are willing to…

> If you have a massive excess of demand ready to pay any price, and a limited supply, of course the sellers will take advantage, that's how any market work The question is how quickly the supply adjusts. In a free market, the suppliers would respond to the price signal by quickly expanding their production to meet the elevated demand. But a market captured by a cartel will be much slower to expand the supply. So, th…

> In a free market, the suppliers would respond to the price signal by quickly expanding their production to meet the elevated demand.

Why would they?

And you claim to have historic examples where they did?

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