Micron stock drops 2% into year-end close as chip rally cools — what investors watch next

Micron stock drops 2% into year-end close as chip rally cools — what investors watch next

NEW YORK, December 31, 2025, 16:19 ET — After-hours

  • Micron shares fell 2.3% in the regular session, underperforming a broader dip in semiconductor stocks.
  • A Form 4 filing showed CFO Mark Murphy moved 35,000 shares into an estate-planning trust, with no cash changing hands.
  • Traders head into 2026 watching U.S. data, the Fed’s next meeting, and signals of new DRAM supply from China.

Micron Technology Inc (MU) shares slid 2.3% on Wednesday, ending the year’s final regular session at $285.81. The stock traded between $284.19 and $293.91 on the day.

The late-day pullback matters because Micron has been a bellwether for the memory-chip boom tied to artificial-intelligence servers, and year-end positioning can amplify moves when liquidity is thin. A softer tone in semiconductors can spill over quickly as investors rebalance risk into 2026.

U.S. stocks slipped in holiday-thin trade, and markets are set to shut on Thursday for New Year’s Day. “It’s perfectly fine in any bull market to have moments of cost,” said Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Reflexivity, pointing to profit-taking when liquidity is low. Storage-focused chip names such as Micron have more than tripled in value in 2025. Reuters

The iShares Semiconductor ETF fell 1.2% in the session, while Nvidia, a key end-market signal for AI hardware demand, slipped 0.5%.

A regulatory filing dated Dec. 29 showed Micron CFO Mark Murphy transferred 35,000 shares into a grantor retained annuity trust, a type of estate-planning vehicle. The filing recorded the transfer at $0.00 a share. Micron Technology

Investors are also tracking the competitive backdrop after China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, disclosed plans to raise 29.5 billion yuan ($4.22 billion) in a Shanghai IPO to fund DRAM expansion. CXMT said it is investing heavily in high-bandwidth memory and aims to begin production by end-2026 at a Shanghai packaging facility. CXMT held about 4% of the global DRAM market in the second quarter, while Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron together controlled more than 90%, data cited in the prospectus showed. Reuters

DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, is the short-term working memory that sits close to processors. High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is a stacked form of DRAM designed to move data faster for AI accelerators.

For Micron, the near-term focus remains on whether AI-driven memory tightness holds into 2026 without prompting a supply response that cools pricing. Traders are also watching customer spending on data-center buildouts and any shifts in contract pricing for DRAM and NAND, the flash memory used in storage devices.

Before the next session, U.S. markets take a break for New Year’s Day, leaving investors to gauge whether 2026 opens with fresh risk-taking or more profit-taking in semiconductors.

Micron has not yet posted a date for its next earnings call on its investor-relations calendar, but Yahoo Finance’s earnings calendar lists the next report for March 18, 2026, after the close. Micron Technology+1

The next macro catalysts land quickly: the U.S. Employment Situation report for December is scheduled for Jan. 9 at 8:30 a.m. ET, and the December consumer price index is due Jan. 13. The Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting is set for Jan. 27–28. Bureau of Labor Statistics+2Bureau of Labor Statistics+2

On the chart, traders point to resistance near the day’s $294 area and a support band around the mid-$280s after Wednesday’s dip. A decisive break either way can draw systematic flows as liquidity returns in early January.

For now, Micron’s year-end slide looks more like positioning than a change in fundamentals, but the competition and policy backdrop sets a high bar for the stock’s next leg.

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