New York, Feb 22, 2026, 10:08 (EST) — The session has ended; markets are closed.
Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.O) ended Friday’s session with a 2.6% gain at $428.17, before slipping roughly 0.3% in after-hours action. With U.S. markets closed Sunday, the memory-chip conversation rolls into Monday’s opening bell. (Yahoo Finance)
South Korean media has turned attention to high-bandwidth memory pricing yet again. According to Barron’s, which referenced Chosun Daily, Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning a 20% to 30% price hike for its HBM4 chips over the previous HBM3E generation. That’s a signal investors often watch across the broader memory sector—Micron included. (Barron’s)
The timing is critical, with AI’s expansion now driving most of the demand for memory chips. According to Micron CFO Mark Murphy, as reported by Reuters Breakingviews, tech giants could boost their data-center investments from about $200 billion in 2024 to close to $800 billion by 2026. (Reuters)
Micron jumped Friday, riding a risk-on wave across U.S. stocks as the Supreme Court tossed out President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. Trump responded, saying he’d instead put a 10% global tariff in place for 150 days. “Today is a removal of some uncertainty,” said Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments, speaking to Reuters. (Reuters)
Chip shares caught a boost, with the Philadelphia semiconductor index adding roughly 1.1% Friday. That uptick nudged the sector higher heading into the weekend. (Investing.com)
High-bandwidth memory—known as HBM—is a high-end DRAM variant built by stacking chips for faster data transfer and lower power draw. It’s installed right alongside AI server processors, and even modest shifts in its price or availability can hit profit forecasts hard and fast.
Still, the setup isn’t one-way traffic. Should elevated prices trigger a quicker supply jump, or if AI server demand slows, memory prices could fall just as sharply as they climbed. This sector rarely delivers a smooth ride.
Investors kick off the week on edge, waiting on the latest AI bellwether results. “It’s hard for Nvidia to surprise when everyone expects it to surprise,” Marta Norton, chief investment strategist at Empower, told Reuters in its Week Ahead note. The market’s watching closely for any signals about what the big cloud “hyperscalers” might be spending on infrastructure this time. (Reuters)
Nvidia’s earnings and call are up next on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 2 p.m. Pacific. The company’s commentary on orders and demand tends to serve as a bellwether for the AI hardware space — Micron’s high-performance memory included. (nvidianews.nvidia.com)
