Micron Technology is poised to report its fiscal third-quarter earnings, with analysts anticipating a nearly tenfold increase in adjusted earnings to $20.83 per share, driven by a surge in demand for memory and storage chips due to data-center investments. The company's sales are expected to reach $35.9 billion, reflecting significant growth from the previous year. However, investors are cautious after a substantial decline in Micron's stock and fear of potential disappointment in guidance for future quarters. The memory chip market is experiencing unprecedented pricing increases due to this current boom, contrasting with previous cycles driven by consumer electronics. Despite a 762% stock increase over the past year, Micron continues to trade at a lower earnings multiple compared to the S&P 500, leaving investors apprehensive about a possible downturn in the future.

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The Micron Paradox: Will a 10x Earnings Jump Be Enough to Prevent a Post-Print Selloff?

By Adam Levine

Updated June 24, 2026, 8:28 am EDT / Original June 24, 2026, 3:00 am EDT

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Silicon wafers being sorted at Micron’s headquarters in Boise, Idaho. (Kyle Green/Bloomberg)

Waiting for Micron. Memory makerMicron Technology

MU\ \ -13.18% is in uncharted territory as it prepares to report its fiscal third-quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon. The company and its peers have gone from a cyclical, commodity-like business to the hottest part of the artificial intelligence trade. The data-center investment boom has driven prices for memory and storage chips into the stratosphere.

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Wall Street analysts are expecting Micron’s adjusted earnings to reach $20.83 a share, more than a dollar above Micron’s guidance range from three months ago, and up from $1.91 last year, a nearly tenfold increase. Sales are expected at $35.9 billion—also above the company’s outlook and up 285% from 2025.

Micron’s adjusted gross profit margin is a closely watched metric, because it’s a good indicator of Micron’s pricing power and where we are in the inventory cycle. Wall Street sees it at an all-time high of 81%, which translates to a 432% markup on costs.

Perhaps more important will be Micron’s guidance for sales, earnings, and gross margin for the fourth quarter. Any signs of slippage in growth or profitability could send the stock tumbling.

Investors spent Tuesday getting in front of a potential disappointment, sending Micron stock down 13%, its largest one-day loss in more than a year. The stock was rising 4.2% in premarket trading Wednesday.

For anyone steeped in the memory business, these are strange times. Memory and storage chips have long been subject to wild swings in inventories and pricing. But unlike previous cycles, which were driven by cyclical demand for consumer electronics, this one is being led by hundreds of billions of dollars in data-center investment. It’s like nothing they’ve seen, and the memory makers were totally unprepared.

When the investment boom began in 2024, the memory makers were coming off one of their worst down-cycles ever in the aftermath of the Covid lockdown boom. With sales and prices crashing, Micron took large inventory write-downs. In 2023 it had four consecutive quarters with negative gross margin.

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Because of the depths of that cycle, Micron and its biggest competitors, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, were loath to make big investments on capacity expansion in 2024, a decision that is biting their customers today. No major new manufacturing capacity is expected until about a year from now, with more following in 2028 and 2029. For now, memory prices are the highest they’ve ever been and don’t show any signs of coming down.

This is trickling down to big price increases for consumer electronics like PCs, smartphones, and game consoles. One of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin AI servers uses the memory equivalent of about 14,500 MacBook Neos, and manufacturers are having to scramble. Even Apple, with its massive market power, is going to raise prices because of the memory shortage.

This has all left investors puzzled. Many still have the scars from mistiming a memory cycle, and so they sell early to try to get ahead of the eventual share price collapse. Micron typically gets a low earnings multiple, and that hasn’t changed. Though the stock is up 762% in the past year, it still trades at just 9.5 times projected earnings for the next 12 months, compared to 20.8 for the S&P 500 index.

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Ultimately, this historic upcycle will face a painful end. But not yet.

Write to Adam Levine at adam.levine@barrons.comExternal link

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