Micron Is Too Cheap To Ignore

Seeking Alpha2021-09-09

Summary I invest mainly in secular growth companies and would, therefore, avoid Micron because the memory and storage segment is highly cyclical. Micron is reporting strong growth in the past few ...

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Comments

Benstonk
2021-09-10
Benstonk
Cheap cheap faster buy $Micron Technology(MU)$
LEEPK
2021-09-09
LEEPK
like
- WB13:
  done
SXZX2026
2021-09-09
SXZX2026
Micron or TSMC?
masran
2021-09-09
masran
pls like
- NCM:
  Ok
Donokane
2021-09-09
Donokane
"Chipping" all the way to the bank
Jenjorjack
2021-09-09
Jenjorjack
Growth is slowing. Dollar cost average and keep some for when market goes into fear. Please like comment and follow

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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nMicron Is Too Cheap To Ignore\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-09-09 11:05 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453997-micron-is-too-cheap-to-ignore><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Summary\n\nI invest mainly in secular growth companies and would, therefore, avoid Micron because the memory and storage segment is highly cyclical.\nMicron is reporting strong growth in the past few ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453997-micron-is-too-cheap-to-ignore\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"MU","symbol_name":"美光科技","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4453997-micron-is-too-cheap-to-ignore","article_id":"1135345797","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1135345797","pubTimestamp":1631156729,"sourceInfo":null,"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"I invest mainly in secular growth companies and would, therefore, avoid Micron because the memory and storage segment is highly cyclical.Micron is reporting strong growth in the past few quarters and this trend is expected to remain positive over the next couple of years.Micron Technology is a cyclical play within the semiconductor industry and I prefer to invest in secular growth companies, but its valuation is so cheap that it makes a very compelling investment right now.Micron is one of the l","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"seekingalpha.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"MU":"美光科技"},"translate_title":"微米太便宜了，不能忽视","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"MU":0.9},"content_text":"Summary\n\nI invest mainly in secular growth companies and would, therefore, avoid Micron because the memory and storage segment is highly cyclical.\nMicron is reporting strong growth in the past few quarters and this trend is expected to remain positive over the next couple of years.\nIts valuation at less than 7x forward earnings is very undemanding and makes it a good cyclical play in the semiconductor industry.\n\nSundry Photography/iStock Editorial via Getty Images\nMicron Technology(MU) is a cyclical play within the semiconductor industry and I prefer to invest in secular growth companies, but its valuation is so cheap that it makes a very compelling investment right now.\nCompany Overview\nMicron is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world, measured by its more than $21 billion in revenues generated last year. The company is focused on the memory and storage products segment, through its DRAM, NAND and NOR technologies. By technology, DRAM is by far the most important one, being responsible for more than two thirds of Micron's revenues.\nSource: Micron.\nMicron was founded in 1978 and is nowadays present in some 17 countries around the world and has 13 manufacturing sites and 14 customer labs in the U.S., China Mainland, Taiwan and other areas. It is traded on the NASDAQ and has a market value of about $83 billion.\nThe semiconductor industry faces fierce competition and this means that for Micron to remain competitive it must invest continuously in new products and technologies to differentiate itself from other players. Its closest competitors are Samsung Electronics(OTC:SSNLF) and SK Hynix, two companies based in South Korea, thus manufacturing costs is also an important factor for Micron to be competitive in the marketplace. According to Statista, Samsung is the largest player in this market segment, followed by SK and Micron, while other players have much smaller market shares.\nEven though the semiconductor industry is generally considered to be a cyclical industry, its prospects are quite good due to new technologies that are expected to boost demand over the next few years.\nGrowth\nAs I've analyzed in a previous article on \"ASML: A Fantastic Company For Long-Term Investors\", the semiconductor industry has very good long-term growth prospects due to several sources of innovation that should support growth for many years down the road.\nModern technology is constantly changing and new developments are constantly pushing for new applications of microchips, including memory and storage. The volume of data is expected to grow strongly over the coming years, through technological advances like 5G, Big Data, autonomous vehicles, the internet of things, beyond others. This backdrop is very positive for Micron's growth, being specifically exposed to secular growth trends of AI, 5G, machine learning and autonomous vehicles.\nThis means that Micron is directly exposed to several growth sources over the coming years and its total addressable market is expected to increase substantially over the next decade. This secular growth trend was even accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, with demand for gaming, laptops and other products increasing rapidly, being a strong cyclical support for Micron's growth beyond its secular growth tailwinds.\nAccording to MarketWatch, the semiconductor memory market is expected to be around $134 in annual sales by 2027, a compounded annual growth rate of 5.9% from 2021-27. Even though this is a positive backdrop, the overall semiconductor industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.6% during 2021-28, thus the memory market may not be the best sub-sector to be exposed to secular growth trends supporting this industry over the coming years. However, Micron has a higher estimate of the total available market for memory and storage by 2024, thus growth opportunities for the company may be higher than what the market is currently expecting.\nSource: Micron.\nDespite good growth prospects over the coming years, the memory and storage segment is usually considered more cyclical than other segments and costumers are structurally reluctant to enter into long-term, fixed-price commitments. This means that Micron is highly exposed to the supply/demand situation in the market and its pricing power is somewhat low over the medium to long term.\nBeyond that, the company also accepts orders that may be adjusted in terms of pricing by the time of shipment, showing that even in the short-term its pricing power is rather low. This is also why the company does not consider its order backlog to be a good indicator of future sales, which means that forecasting Micron's revenues and earnings in a time frame of 3-5 years is a tough exercise that most likely will be incorrect compared to the actual numbers the company will report in the succeeding periods.\nFinancial Overview\nRegarding its financial performance, Micron has a mixed history showing that its business is clearly cyclical and can report strong swings on an annual basis. Indeed, even though Micron's revenues have increased at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4% from fiscal years (FY) 2016-20 (which end s in September), its revenues declined by 23% in FY 2019 and 8.4% in FY 2020. Moreover, its net income is also highly volatile, reporting $14 billion in FY 2018 and only $2.7 billion in FY 2020.\nThis clearly shows that Micron is highly exposed to the ups and downs of the market, which can change quite dramatically in a short period of time. This can also be seen by Micron's long-term trend of its EBITDA margin, which is highly volatile even though it has consistently improved over the years.\nSource: Micron.\nMore recently, Micron's business has been on a better operating momentum, to some extent driven by the pandemic, with demand for consumer electronics increasing substantially across the globe, which was a strong tailwind for the memory and storage chip market, while other segments reported lower demand, such as automotive.\nThis mixed backdrop resulted in lower revenues during the FY 2020, due to a large extent from lower DRAM prices that impacted negatively Micron's revenues and gross margin, Its revenues amounted to $21.4 billion (-8.4% YoY) and its gross margin declined to 31% (vs. 46% in FY 2019). Sales of NAND products increased during the year, boosted by data center customers, but were not enough to offset weakness in the DRAM segment. Regarding costs and R&D, Micron has a good discipline and these costs did not increase significantly compared to the previous year. Micron's bottom-line declined by 57% YoY to $2.7 billion, and its EPS was $2.37 (vs. $5.51 per share in FY 2019).\nDuring the first nine months of FY 2021, Micron has reported a very strong operating momentum which has enabled it to offset the loss of Huawei as a costumer due to U.S. sanctions (it represented about 12% of Micron's revenues in FY 2019).\nIn the third quarter of FY 2021, its revenues were 7.4 billion (+36% YoY) boosted by DRAM that reported revenue growth of 52% YoY, due to higher volumes and prices, while NAND's revenues were up by 9% YoY. Its net income more than double from the third quarter of FY 2020, to $2.17 billion, and its net profit margin improved to 29% (vs. 17% in the same quarter of last year). Its free cash flow was $1.5 billion in the quarter, a very good level of cash flow generation compared to accounting profit.\nGoing forward, Micron is very positive about the demand outlook in the memory segment, supported by data center costumers and new product developments that should support volume growth in the coming years. On the other hand, there is some negative sentiment in the market about future memory prices, which would be negative for the company's revenue growth in the coming quarters. For instance, a Morgan Stanley(MS) analyst has recently downgraded Micron because he expect s DRAM prices to be in a late stage cycle has the supply-demand situation is becoming more balanced.\nNevertheless, according to analysts' estimates, Micron should report higher revenues in FY 2022 and FY 2023 (to $36.7 billion and $40 billion, respectively) and the business is only expected to slow down thereafter. Its bottom-line is estimated to go up by 86% YoY in FY 2022, but to drop in the following years, which show to some extent that Micron's current strong growth may not be sustainable over the medium term.\nRegarding its balance sheet, Micron has a good situation, given that its net cash position was around $3.1 billion at the end of last quarter, thus its financial profile is strong and it can return excess capital to shareholders.\nIndeed, Micron has performed historically share buybacks, but more recently decided to start distributing a dividend, which shows some confidence about the company's future business prospects and its ability to return capital to shareholders in a recurring basis. Its quarterly dividend was set at only $0.10 per share, which lead to a modest dividend yield, but the goal is to gradually increase the dividend over the next few years.\nBottom Line\nMicron is reporting strong growth and medium-term prospects are good due to several growth trends of AI, 5G and others. However, the memory market is highly cyclical and there are some worries that its current strong trend may not last much.\nThe semiconductor industry has secular long-term growth prospects, but in my opinion the best way to invest in this theme is through companies that have some sort of competitive advantage and pricing power, such as ASML(ASML) that has a monopoly in the EUV technology. Micron does not fit that criteria and for that reason I was inclined to avoid it.\nHowever, I find its valuation as ridiculously cheap, given that based on 2022 and 2023 earnings it is currently trading at less than 7x forward earnings. This is extremely undemanding and even if earnings estimates come down somewhat, Micron would still be trading at a much lower valuation than its peers and its own historical average (about 11.5x over the past five years).\nThis means that even though Micron is a cyclical play within the semiconductor industry (my investment approach is to buy mainly secular growth companies), its valuation is too much cheap to ignore and upside potential looks good if pricing in the memory market remains strong. I have bought a small stake in Micron (about 3% of my portfolio) and intend to hold it for a while, but if pricing in the memory market starts to show weakness I most likely will sell my stake.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":881012791,"gmtCreate":1631281172713,"gmtModify":1676530517760,"author":{"id":"3574851080358491","authorId":"3574851080358491","name":"Benstonk","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c8a964cfa9223e4704989c9a4b9b772e","vip":1,"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"authorIdStr":"3574851080358491","idStr":"3574851080358491"},"htmlText":"Cheap cheap faster buy <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/MU\">$Micron Technology(MU)$</a>","listText":"Cheap cheap faster buy <a href=\"https://laohu8.com/S/MU\">$Micron Technology(MU)$</a>","text":"Cheap cheap faster buy $Micron Technology(MU)$","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/881012791","repostId":1135345797,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":889546313,"gmtCreate":1631162603132,"gmtModify":1676530484300,"author":{"id":"3561626499477725","authorId":"3561626499477725","name":"LEEPK","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/797bbc4f6e8194fe6be369618bc544f5","vip":1,"crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"authorIdStr":"3561626499477725","idStr":"3561626499477725"},"htmlText":"like","listText":"like","text":"like","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/889546313","repostId":1135345797,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5802837,"gmtCreate":1631163480363,"gmtModify":1663233598831,"authorId":3573351657200487,"author":{"id":3573351657200487,"idStr":"3573351657200487","authorId":3573351657200487,"name":"WB13","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c32eff74d0ce173f7e10df861c0ee416","vip":1,"crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":889546313,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"<u>done</u>","text":"<u>done</u>","html":"<u>done</u>"}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":889566450,"gmtCreate":1631159377970,"gmtModify":1676530483543,"author":{"id":"3555288390119843","authorId":"3555288390119843","name":"SXZX2026","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/77ce9bd591611bdaa026b6c3ada85d2c","vip":1,"crmLevel":4,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"authorIdStr":"3555288390119843","idStr":"3555288390119843"},"htmlText":"Micron or TSMC?&nbsp;","listText":"Micron or TSMC?&nbsp;","text":"Micron or TSMC?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/889566450","repostId":1135345797,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":889587762,"gmtCreate":1631158882056,"gmtModify":1676530483400,"author":{"id":"3582888796077977","authorId":"3582888796077977","name":"masran","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5258de17f60ac17503ecfa2ededa974d","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"authorIdStr":"3582888796077977","idStr":"3582888796077977"},"htmlText":"pls like","listText":"pls like","text":"pls like","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/889587762","repostId":1135345797,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"comments":[{"id":5803025,"gmtCreate":1631165260245,"gmtModify":1663233605434,"authorId":3567832114052050,"author":{"id":3567832114052050,"idStr":"3567832114052050","authorId":3567832114052050,"name":"NCM","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/bd72c39fd9a998a91f641828e572613e","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[]},"repliedAuthorId":0,"objectId":889587762,"type":1,"supId":0,"prevId":0,"content":"Ok","text":"Ok","html":"Ok"}],"langContent":"EN"},{"id":889580645,"gmtCreate":1631158025588,"gmtModify":1676530483153,"author":{"id":"3574372584321621","authorId":"3574372584321621","name":"Donokane","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b672fbcb32dfabc5e8ff43920dc4c61e","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"authorIdStr":"3574372584321621","idStr":"3574372584321621"},"htmlText":"\"Chipping\" all the way to the bank","listText":"\"Chipping\" all the way to the bank","text":"\"Chipping\" all the way to the bank","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":7,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/889580645","repostId":1135345797,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":889517776,"gmtCreate":1631157965495,"gmtModify":1676530483145,"author":{"id":"3554873215379647","authorId":"3554873215379647","name":"Jenjorjack","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d9d4687aa5519f0d2fb1b18f916be861","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f84d87792f02cf78e80ee34979fd31e5","crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":1,"authorIdStr":"3554873215379647","idStr":"3554873215379647"},"htmlText":"Growth is slowing. Dollar cost average and keep some for when market goes into fear. Please like comment and follow&nbsp;","listText":"Growth is slowing. Dollar cost average and keep some for when market goes into fear. Please like comment and follow&nbsp;","text":"Growth is slowing. Dollar cost average and keep some for when market goes into fear. Please like comment and follow","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":7,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/889517776","repostId":1135345797,"repostType":4,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":37,"commentSize":8,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.29.1","shortVersion":"4.29.1","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/1135345797"}