It's full steam ahead for Micron Technology. Investors are warming up to the stock again ahead of its earnings, with plenty of evidence the memory-chip shortage is set to last for a while.
Micron shares were up 3.1% at $1,030.52 in morning trading. American depositary receipts of its South Korean peer SK Hynix were up 4.5%. The memory-chip companies were defying a wider market slump with the S&P 500 down 0.4%.
Of course not every stock is expecting such huge profit boosts as Micron, which will report its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Sept. 30. The company's adjusted earnings per share are expected to rise to $30.89 from $2.84 for the same period a year earlier. Revenue is expected to rise nearly fivefold to $50.41 billion.
After a wobble in July, hit by fears about the sustainability of artificial-intelligence spending, Micron has generally resumed its upward trend, reclaiming its $1 trillion market value.
Shareholders seem to be getting more confident that memory prices will keep rising and Wall Street agrees. UBS analysts Timothy Arcuri wrote on Tuesday that he expects average selling prices of memory chips to rise more than 20% overall in the third quarter of this year from the previous quarter.
"We now expect both DRAM and NAND to continue to be undersupplied into 2027," Arcuri wrote.
DRAM is short-term working memory that computers and AI hardware use to manage active data and running processes. It makes up about three quarters of Micron's revenue. NAND flash memory is used for longer-term storage.
Barron's previously argued Micron could double in price when it was trading around above $1,100. It has a way to go, but the trajectory is upward.
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