NEW YORK, March 25, 2026, 11:40 AM EDT
Micron Technology was down 4.7% at $377.08 by late Wednesday morning in New York. The chipmaker announced earlier that it’s rolling out cash tender offers for select outstanding senior notes.
The decline is notable: investors aren’t just focused on demand anymore when it comes to Micron. Following last week’s earnings, the company bumped up its fiscal 2026 capex by $5 billion—now set to top $25 billion—and shares slid, despite quarterly numbers and guidance both clearing Wall Street’s bar without trouble.
The chatter only picked up over the past day. SK Hynix revealed plans for a confidential U.S. listing—potentially raising anywhere from $9.6 billion up to $14.4 billion. Just a day before that, it announced a $7.97 billion purchase of extreme ultraviolet chipmaking equipment from ASML. Meritz Securities analyst Kim Sun-woo pointed out that listing in the U.S. would put SK Hynix side by side with a direct rival, Micron. Meanwhile, Ryu Young-ho at NH Investment & Securities said the new machines are expected to support production for both HBM and advanced DRAM.
High-bandwidth memory—HBM for short—powers the rapid data transfer that AI chips demand. Only three players supply it worldwide: Micron, plus SK Hynix and Samsung. Last week, Samsung pledged over 110 trillion won ($73.24 billion) this year for R&D and new facilities.
Micron’s results landed with little room for debate: second-quarter revenue climbed to $23.86 billion, a sharp jump from $8.05 billion a year ago. Non-GAAP diluted EPS reached $12.20. For the fiscal third quarter, the company is looking for roughly $33.5 billion in revenue. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra pointed to memory as a “strategic asset” for its customers. The board also bumped up the quarterly dividend by 30%. Micron Technology
Micron’s latest debt maneuver landed Wednesday. The company, in an 8-K, outlined plans to buy back six note series maturing between 2031 and 2035. The tender offers run through March 31 and, assuming all goes as planned, will settle April 3.
The warning isn’t new. Barron’s quoted Deutsche Bank’s Ross Seymore, who maintains the underlying story is solid but flags a different issue: memory and chip-equipment names now command steep prices. That’s a classic scenario in a sector known for overshooting on supply when profits hold up too long.
Some aren’t convinced the market has the cycle pegged. Patrick Moorhead at Moor Insights & Strategy told MarketWatch he sees investors stuck on memory’s old cyclical patterns. Mehrotra, for his part, described the current supply-demand imbalance as “unprecedented,” with Micron forging ahead on projects in Taiwan, Idaho and New York. Right now, that back-and-forth is outweighing the headline figures. marketwatch.com
