New York, May 26, 2026, 04:11 (EDT)
- Micron shares traded at $779.05 before the bell, up 3.7% from Friday’s close at $751.00.
- U.S. cash trading gets back underway Tuesday after the NYSE was closed for Memorial Day on Monday. Regular trading is set for 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.
- Micron’s newest catalyst is its Manassas, Virginia memory plant expansion, which the company says is now making 1-alpha DRAM in the U.S. for industrial, auto, defense and medical customers with long product cycles.
Micron Technology stock jumped ahead of Tuesday’s open, continuing a choppy stretch for the memory-chip company. Investors returned after the Memorial Day break and kept chasing the AI memory trade.
Micron shares traded at $779.05 at 4:03 a.m. EDT, up 3.7% from where they finished Friday. The stock last closed at $751.00, down 1.5%, after moving between $747.20 and $780.20 on about 35.3 million shares.
Micron is now seen as one of the purest stock plays on a potential shortage of memory chips in AI data centers. DRAM is the short-term memory servers and PCs use. HBM, or high-bandwidth memory, puts memory chips right up against processors to let AI systems work with data more quickly.
Market watchers now look to see if Friday’s dip signals a new trend or just a brief halt. Micron shares climbed from $681.54 on Monday, May 18, to $762.10 by Thursday, May 21, but dropped on Friday, StockAnalysis data shows.
Micron said Friday it has kicked off 1-alpha DRAM production at its Manassas, Virginia fab. The company is calling it the most advanced memory tech made in the U.S. The expansion, which cost more than $2 billion, will quadruple DDR4 wafer output at the site. Micron said the extra supply will go to customers in automotive, defense, aerospace, industrial, networking, and medical devices.
“Today’s achievement is an important step in Micron’s $200 billion investment plan to expand memory manufacturing and R&D in the U.S.,” Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra said in a company statement. Mehrotra said the company was “proud to bring advanced 1α DRAM manufacturing to American soil.” Micron Technology
Micron said AI demand is changing markets across data centers, autos, and factories, with advanced memory now called a “strategic asset.” The company expects Manassas to qualify 1-alpha DRAM production by the end of calendar 2026. Micron Technology
Analyst calls for Micron stay upbeat. TipRanks says Mizuho’s Vijay Rakesh kept a Buy on the stock with an $800 target as of May 25. Citi’s Atif Malik went with an $840 target on May 18, and Ben Reitzes at Melius Research held his $1,100 target that same day.
Bulls are focused on pricing. In a note picked up by Investing.com, Malik said that memory makers were talking about “3-5 year strategic or long-term agreements” with big cloud clients. These deals include base volumes and prepayments, and Malik said they could keep contract prices stable even if spot prices slip. Investing.com
Competitive tension hasn’t gone away. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix still drive HBM capacity, and if either moves faster on production, the supply side propping up Micron’s rally could shift. Citi’s base case, via TheStreet, has the DRAM upcycle lasting through 2027 and expects supply discipline from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
The risk is clear: memory runs in cycles. If AI demand cools, customers resist price hikes, or Samsung and SK Hynix ramp up supply quicker than expected, the tight market that’s helped Micron can reverse. Citi pointed out some softness in DDR5 16GB DRAM spot prices, with Malik saying prices are off around 6% since Micron’s last report.
Investors need to keep in mind that premarket trading can look different from what happens once the regular session starts. NYSE Arca opens for early trading at 4:00 a.m. ET, but the core market doesn’t start until 9:30 a.m. ET. That later opening is when there’s usually more liquidity and a clearer sense of where demand stands.
