Micron Stock's Make-or-Break Year-Mark Your Calendars -- Barrons.com

By Adam Clark

Micron Technology seems to have leveled off after its latest breakout. Shareholders waiting to see when the memory-chip company will garner a higher valuation might have to wait for a while.

Micron shares were down 0.2% at $1,061.50 in premarket trading Tuesday. Although the stock has rebounded handily from lows of below $800 in the summer, recent blowout earnings haven't helped it regain the highs of more than $1,200 reached earlier this year.

As Barron's has previously written, the problem is that investors are still wary of what happens when the artificial-intelligence boom stops driving memory prices higher. Although Micron has locked in long-term supply deals, the market doesn't seem willing to assign it a permanently higher price-to-earnings multiple until it sees evidence of what happens in a downcycle.

So when will that downcycle actually happen? The earliest predictions of a memory price peak are for mid-2027, from analysts such as Citi's Atif Malik, who points to increasing Chinese supply. But Micron said in its earnings that it has already locked in customers for more than 75% of its production next year.

"We believe 2027 pricing has been set with large customers for some time, with ongoing or recent negotiations likely tied to smaller deals," wrote Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson in a research note this week.

So the more likely date for memory prices to be tested looks to be in 2028. That's when Micron's South Korean rivals SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics are set to bring multiple new production sites into operation, with a total of seven new memory fabrication and packaging plants set to come online that year according to research firm Trendforce.

"The timelines point to 2028 as a key inflection point for new capacity -- but with fabs ramping gradually, rather than all at once, supply relief may prove just as gradual," wrote Trendforce analysts Tuesday.

If Micron's supply deals can keep prices stable or growing even through the 2028 capacity increase, then even the most hardened memory skeptics might have to admit it is too cheap.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com

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October 06, 2026 07:16 ET (11:16 GMT)