A $41.5 Billion Quarter and a New Rival on Wall Street: Why Micron’s Stock Is Cooling Even as Its Business Heats Up
Published on 07/11/2026 at 14:06 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Micron Technology delivered a third-quarter revenue surge of 346 percent year over year to $41.5 billion, and earnings per share hit $25.11 while the gross margin stretched to 84.6 percent. The data-center segment alone topped $25 billion in quarterly sales, annualizing above $100 billion, and high-bandwidth-memory chip shipments crossed the $1 billion mark — with the entire 2026 allocation already sold out. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra warned that DRAM and NAND supply would lag demand well beyond 2027, a view echoed by Taiwanese rival Nanya Technology, which is quadrupling its 2027 capital spending to roughly $6.22 billion for a new factory.
Yet on the German exchange, Micron shares closed the week at €857.30, down 1.15 percent on Friday and 6 percent over the five-day stretch. The culprit was not any disappointment in the numbers but rather a seismic shift in the competitive landscape: SK Hynix, the world’s dominant HBM maker with about 60 percent of the market, made its historic New York Stock Exchange debut at $149 per ADR, raising $26.5 billion — the largest IPO by a foreign company in U.S. history. The stock soared 17 percent on its first trading day, and the offering was seven times oversubscribed. For three years, U.S. investors had no direct vehicle to bet on the HBM leader, leaving Micron as the de facto play. That window has now slammed shut.
The capital rotation out of Micron and into SK Hynix was compounded by plain-vanilla profit-taking. On Thursday, Micron had jumped 4.5 percent after Mehrotra announced a stunning escalation of domestic investment: more than $250 billion earmarked for U.S. chip production by 2035, with the goal of making 40 percent of the world’s DRAM on American soil. The first concrete for a new DRAM megafab in Clay, New York, was poured more than a quarter ahead of schedule — the largest private investment in the state’s history, expected to create up to 50,000 jobs, 9,000 of them directly at Micron. Across all U.S. sites, the company forecasts roughly 100,000 new positions. An additional $3 billion is flowing into the supply chain, including a $500 million wafer agreement with GlobalWafers for a 300-millimeter factory in Sherman, Texas. President Trump and Commerce Secretary Lutnick publicly praised the plan.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Micron?
SK Hynix’s CEO Kwak Noh-jung, meanwhile, warned of the worst memory shortage in his company’s history arriving in 2027, with constraints persisting beyond 2030 — a characterization that dovetails perfectly with Micron’s own supply narrative but did nothing to arrest the stock’s slide. Analysts see the week as a three-part story: capital migration to the new IPO, profit-taking after the Thursday spike, and lingering unease about memory-chip pricing sustainability.
For all the short-term noise, Micron’s longer-term trajectory remains formidable. Year-to-date the stock is up 218.70 percent; over twelve months the gain is 714.46 percent. From the 52-week low of €90.64 reached on August 1, 2025, the current price represents an 845.83 percent ascent, though it sits 22.33 percent below the June 25 high of €1,103.80. Technically, the trend is intact: shares trade above the 50-day moving average of €803.32 and far above the 200-day average of €409.18, while the relative strength index at 48.7 signals a neutral reading. The annualized 30-day volatility of 109.58 percent underscores the turbulence around recent headlines.
Wall Street remains broadly bullish. Among 53 analysts tracked by MarketWatch, the average price target is $1,575.62, implying roughly 68 percent upside from the July 7 close, with targets ranging from $470 to $2,200. DA Davidson raised its target to $2,000 this month, the highest on the Street, citing improved visibility in the semiconductor cycle and robust AI-driven memory demand. TD Cowen reiterated its buy rating with a $1,600 target, noting that long-term supply contracts already cover about half of revenue. Bank of America also keeps a buy with a $1,550 target. The notable outlier is Goldman Sachs, which maintains a skeptical $400 target.
The immediate challenge is that capital allocation between the two HBM giants has been permanently altered. Now that SK Hynix’s ADRs trade in New York, the competitive dynamic that once forced U.S. money into Micron is gone. How that new equilibrium settles, alongside the tangible progress of Micron’s onshoring push, will define the stock’s narrative in the weeks ahead. But with a $938 billion market capitalization and a business that cannot keep up with demand, the underlying thesis — that the world needs more memory chips than anyone can make — remains as sturdy as the concrete now hardening in upstate New York.
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Micron Stock: New Analysis - 11 July
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