New York, May 28, 2026, 08:01 EDT
- Micron slipped before the bell after a $928.41 finish on Wednesday. The stock remains close to its all-time high.
- The U.S. memory-chip maker is now worth more than $1 trillion after a rally fueled by AI demand and new analyst upgrades.
- U.S. futures moved lower ahead of the open, with traders watching Iran headlines and waiting for new inflation data.
Micron Technology was down ahead of the Nasdaq open Thursday, taking a break after the memory-chip maker’s big move into the $1 trillion club and its strong gains from AI-related buying. Shares traded at $911.48 as of 7:47 a.m. EDT, off 1.82% from the $928.41 close Wednesday, MarketScreener data showed.
The regular Nasdaq session hadn’t started yet. Nasdaq’s main trading day is 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern, but premarket runs 4 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., when volume is thinner and prices can swing faster.
Micron’s surge is now seen by some as a test for whether memory chips count as key AI infrastructure or just another cyclical trade. The company briefly hit a $1 trillion market cap for the first time on Tuesday, after UBS raised its price target to $1,625 from $535, the highest on LSEG’s brokerage list, Reuters said.
Micron “sits at the center” of AI-driven demand for memory chips, B. Riley Wealth chief market strategist Art Hogan told Reuters. “The need for pure memory has increased rapidly,” he said, pointing to AI data centers as a key driver. Reuters
High-bandwidth memory, or HBM, is the driver behind the deal. The stacked, high-speed memory lets AI chips shift huge data loads faster. Micron said its 2026 HBM supply is sold out, with HBM4 chips now in production, according to Reuters.
Micron is chasing its bigger rivals. Samsung Electronics is already at $1 trillion, and SK Hynix is getting close, Reuters reported. Both go head-to-head with Micron in memory chips for servers, smartphones and PCs. On the other side is Nvidia, which sells processors that use more memory to train and run AI models.
Micron’s latest numbers are giving bulls something. The chipmaker posted fiscal Q2 revenue of $23.86 billion and said non-GAAP gross margin came in at 74.9%. Adjusted earnings were $12.20 a share, and adjusted free cash flow reached $6.9 billion. For the fiscal third quarter, Micron guided for revenue of $33.5 billion, give or take $750 million.
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra called memory “a strategic asset” in the AI era in the company’s earnings report. Micron is expecting “significant records again” for its fiscal third quarter. The company plans its third-quarter call for June 24 at 4:30 p.m. EDT. Micron Technology
Broker updates kept coming Thursday, with D.A. Davidson bumping its Micron target to $1,500 from $1,000, sticking with a buy. Mizuho moved its target up to $1,150 from $800 and kept an outperform rating, MT Newswires reported at MarketScreener.
Micron’s gain is tied to “expected to remain” high prices for memory chips in the next few years, Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager for equities at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management, told Reuters. It’s simple, he said: supply is tight, prices stay high, and AI customers keep buying. Reuters
There’s also a straightforward bear scenario. Morningstar senior analyst William Kerwin said Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix and Chinese suppliers are expanding capacity, and that could mean too much supply in late 2027 and 2028. In memory chips, even a little oversupply can weigh on prices since products are pretty much interchangeable.
Early Thursday, U.S. index futures slipped as the broader market stayed weak. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 0.51% at 7:03 a.m. EDT. Investors kept a close eye on rising U.S.-Iran tensions and oil prices, and awaited the Federal Reserve’s go-to inflation number later in the day. “A higher-than-expected print” would add to hawkish Fed expectations, Swissquote Bank analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya told Reuters. Reuters
