Micron Technology, Inc., a major U.S. memory manufacturer, received a bullish call from analysts and was optimistic about the boosting effect of the AI boom on the DRAM industry, and its stock price hit a new historical closing high. Barron’...
Micron Technology, Inc., a major U.S. memory manufacturer, received a bullish call from analysts and was optimistic about the boosting effect of the AI boom on the DRAM industry, and its stock price hit a new historical closing high.
Barron’s and Seeking Alpha reported that Citi Research analyst Christopher Danely raised Micron's target price from US$200 to US$240, citing the critical importance and supply shortage of DRAM, which is expected to become "the next chip type to win long-term contracts in the AI food chain." Danely maintained its investment rating at "buy."
Micron surged 5.52% after hearing the news on the 16th, closing at US$202.53, a record closing high, ranking first among the 30 constituent stocks of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.
Danely said that NVIDIA (Nvidia), AMD (AMD) and Broadcom (Broadcom) have played similar stories. All three companies are advancing technology to support a wider range of high-performance computing (HPC) tasks. Among them, NVIDIA's graphics processor (GPU) was first used in games, and later changed to support AI.
Danely predicts that as AI companies compete for DRAM supply, DRAM quotations are expected to rise and become more sustainable, which will benefit Micron. He speculated that Micron's gross profit margin in the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 is expected to expand to 60% from 44.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025, which is close to the previous high of 60.8% in 2018.
The Danely model shows that Micron’s earnings per share in fiscal year 2026 will reach US$21.05, higher than the previous estimate of US$16.93, and revenue will reach US$62.5 billion, higher than the previous estimate of US$56 billion. That's well above Wall Street consensus. According to a FactSet survey, analysts estimated earnings per share and revenue of $16.08 and $54 billion.
Benchmark Securities pointed out earlier this week that Micron has notified customers to increase NAND flash memory quotations by 20~30% and has also suspended accepting new orders.
Micron is scheduled to announce its fourth-quarter financial results on December 17.
It is worth noting that Reuters reported that New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced on the 16th that the New York State Public Service Commission (New York State Public Service Commission) had approved the latest underground transmission cable. The cable connects the existing Clay substation to the semiconductor megafactory Micron plans to build in Onondaga County. Hochul pointed out that this 2-mile-long, 345-kilovolt underground cable is a critical piece of infrastructure in Micron's planned $100 billion investment in central New York. This is the largest private enterprise investment case in the history of New York State.
