Is It Too Late To Buy Micron Stock After Its Record Memory Run?

Micron Technology (MU) has returned about 575% over the past twelve months, against 17% for the S&P 500. The past three months added about 4%, so the run has flattened. At a price near $1,100, you would be buying the record profit that boom produced, and contracts that will cap the price of much of Micron’s memory once its planned deals are signed.

Does Micron Look Cheap Only Because Profits Are At A Record?

On earnings the stock looks reasonable: about 25 times the past twelve months of profit, against a three-year average near 37 times. But the multiple sits on a net margin of about 56%, the highest in at least five years, against a three-year average of 7.5%. A low multiple on margins like that is fair rather than cheap.

On cash it looks dearer. Free cash flow was $26.2 billion over the last twelve months, after $25.3 billion of capital spending. Against a market value of about $1.24 trillion, that is roughly 47 times cash flow. That spending is going into the Idaho fabs and the New York fab cluster.

Does The Price Already Assume Memory Stays This Tight?

Analysts expect revenue to grow about 66% a year through fiscal 2028, against about 167% over the last twelve months. Consensus already assumes the boom cools. Those forward estimates are adjusted on a different basis from the trailing multiple: about 6.9 times fiscal 2027 earnings and about 6.4 times fiscal 2028.

Settle the multiple between those two years, about 6.7 times, on the 2028 earnings, and the stock is worth about 4% above today’s price. The growth is already in the price. Micron’s HBM4 12-high ramp is tracking twice as fast as the 12-high generation before it, so the earnings may well arrive. Anything beyond them needs a higher multiple.

Micron’s strategic customer agreements are take-or-pay deals typically running to the end of calendar 2030. Management says their floor prices leave gross margins well above the peak of any past cycle. The ceilings on the largest deals generally apply to existing products, set at what memory fetched in the second calendar quarter of 2026.

Management expects fixed or capped prices to cover about 40% of revenue once every planned agreement is signed. So a good part of the upside is contracted away with the downside. Micron has said it will report fiscal Q4 2026 results on September 30, 2026.

What Is Riding On September 30?

Micron guided fiscal Q4 2026 to revenue of about $50 billion, more than half of the $90.3 billion it took in over the last twelve months. Report days cut both ways: up nearly 18% over the two trading days after its December 2025 report, down about 8% after its March 2026 report, and up 8% after its June 2026 report.

Buying here backs the view that memory stays tight past calendar 2027. That is what management says and what the contracts assume. If it breaks, the record is unkind: the largest peak-to-trough fall of the past ten years was about 58%. Until then, watch which companies are still raising guidance.

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