Shares slid 3.8% to $343.54 Monday morning, extending a bruising streak that has now erased roughly $50 billion in market value from Micron's peak near $471 earlier this month — all despite the company delivering what may be the strongest quarter in memory-chip history.
• Record Earnings Were Not Enough to Satisfy a Stock That Already Tripled
Fiscal Q2 revenue hit $23.9 billion, up 196% year-over-year, the fourth consecutive quarterly record.
Non-GAAP EPS landed at $12.20, crushing the $8.60 consensus by nearly 42%. But the stock had already priced in enormous expectations: shares tripled in 2025 and jumped another 62% year-to-date before the report. When the bar is that high, even a blowout becomes a sell-the-news event, and shares fell roughly 19.5% in the five sessions after earnings, dropping more than 23.5% from their recent high.
• Next Quarter's Guidance Reads Like Science Fiction — And That's the Problem
Micron guided fiscal Q3 revenue to approximately $33.5 billion with gross margins around 81% and EPS of $19.15.
An 81% gross margin is virtually unheard of in memory, a business historically treated as commodity-grade. For shareholders, fulfilling this guidance would validate the idea that AI has permanently changed the economics of memory chips. Missing it, even slightly, could trigger a deeper reset.
• Google's Compression Breakthrough Spooked Investors at the Worst Moment
News broke mid-week that Alphabet has developed compression technology that shrinks memory size six times while increasing performance.
Worries that this would reduce demand for Micron's high-bandwidth memory chips subtracted 3.4% from Micron's market cap in a single session.
Morgan Stanley, however, called the sell-off a buying opportunity , arguing near-term supply is still sold out.
• A $25 Billion Spending Spree Makes the Earnings Cycle a High-Wire Act
Micron plans capital expenditures exceeding $25 billion in fiscal 2026 , with an additional $10 billion for facility expansion in fiscal 2027.
Spending at that pace is a bet on sustained AI memory demand — if that demand softens even slightly, the math gets uncomfortable.
At less than 8× forward earnings, bulls argue the sell-off has already discounted considerable risk , but the capital commitment means Micron has little room to pivot if the cycle turns.