New York, Jan 18, 2026, 06:31 ET — Market closed
- Micron shares finished Friday up 7.8%, closing at $362.75.
- Micron agreed to buy PSMC’s Tongluo site in Taiwan for $1.8 billion in cash, signing a letter of intent.
- RBC kicked off coverage with an Outperform rating and set a $425 price target, pointing to tight memory supply as a key factor.
Micron Technology shares surged 7.8% on Friday, closing at $362.75, outpacing a broad semiconductor ETF as memory-chip stocks led gains across the tech sector. Investors head into the weekend with a fresh batch of corporate news to digest before markets reopen.
The near-term narrative hasn’t changed: investors want memory tied to AI servers, and Micron is right at the heart of that play. Yet, the company’s recent updates have shifted attention back to supply — specifically, what it can produce, where, and at what speed.
This matters since memory tends to swing the other direction. Once supply catches up, prices often drop fast, and stocks rarely hold out for the quarterly results.
Micron announced it has signed an exclusive letter of intent to buy Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp’s P5 fab in Tongluo, Taiwan, for $1.8 billion in cash. The deal adds 300,000 square feet of cleanroom space dedicated to 300mm (12-inch) wafer production. Manish Bhatia, Micron’s EVP of global operations, said this move will help the company ramp up production amid strong demand. The transaction, expected to close by Q2 2026 pending approvals and agreements, could boost DRAM wafer output significantly in the latter half of 2027. 1
Micron officially broke ground on a $100 billion memory manufacturing complex in Clay, New York, a day earlier. The site will house up to four fabs, with production slated to begin in 2030. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra emphasized the move as a clear signal of Micron’s dedication to “building leading-edge memory at scale” in the U.S. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang also weighed in, noting that “advanced memory has become essential” amid AI’s rapid expansion. 2
RBC Capital kicked off coverage this week with an Outperform rating and set a $425 target. Analyst Srini Pajjuri pointed to “extreme tightness” in the memory market, suggesting that better supply discipline might push the upcycle through 2027. He singled out high-bandwidth memory (HBM) — a high-speed DRAM stacked for AI accelerators — as a major growth driver. 3
A regulatory filing revealed that director Teyin M. Liu acquired 23,200 Micron shares across multiple transactions on Jan. 13 and 14, paying roughly $336 to $337.5 per share. This bumped his direct holdings to 25,910 shares. While insider buying isn’t a guarantee of future gains, it often attracts notice when the stock is already active. 4
Micron’s main offerings are DRAM, the “working” memory in servers and PCs, and NAND flash, which stores data. Its stock typically moves alongside the broader memory sector. At the high end, Micron goes head-to-head with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, particularly as HBM takes up a growing share of AI hardware costs.
Traders now focus on whether this rally can sustain itself without fresh pricing data. Spot checks on DRAM and NAND prices, supply rumors from Asia, and remarks from cloud clients have the power to shift the group quickly.
The risk is clear. Should AI spending falter or supply come online faster than predicted, memory prices could plunge. Micron’s aggressive expansion and deal schedules won’t provide much of a buffer for the stock anytime soon.
U.S. stock markets will be closed Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, reopening Tuesday. Micron’s next real test arrives with Tuesday’s first print. Investors will watch closely for follow-through, along with any new details on the Taiwan purchase process following the weekend’s announcement. 5
