TLDR
- Micron stock dropped more than 7% on Monday and is now down over 17% in the past five days, following a record high hit roughly two weeks ago.
- Melius Research raised its MU price target 57% to $1,100 — the highest on Wall Street — maintaining a Buy rating and citing strong AI-driven memory demand.
- Citi nearly doubled its MU price target from $425 to $840, expecting a 40% DRAM price hike from Micron in Q2.
- A threatened Samsung worker strike (May 21–June 7) could disrupt around 3% of global memory-chip production, adding supply concerns.
- JP Morgan sees elevated memory pricing potentially lasting until late 2027, pointing to a structural shift in the memory market.
Analysts on Wall Street are staying bullish on Micron (MU) even as the stock took a sharp hit this week — falling more than 7% on Monday alone and down over 17% in just five days.
The drop came after MU hit a record high roughly two weeks ago. The stock is still up more than 140% in 2026 and over sevenfold in the past year, fueled by surging demand for memory chips tied to AI infrastructure spending.
Monday’s decline was linked in part to growing concerns about a potential labor strike at Samsung Electronics.
Samsung workers are demanding 15% of operating profit in bonuses and have threatened a general strike from May 21 through June 7. Jefferies estimates a full walkout could disrupt roughly 3% of global memory-chip production.
South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok warned that even a single day of halted operations at Samsung’s chip assembly plants could cost up to 1 trillion won — around $667.6 million. Management and union leaders were back at the table Monday, with talks expected to continue into Tuesday.
Despite the strike threat, Samsung stock rose about 3.9% during local trading Monday.
Analysts Stay Bullish Despite the Drop
Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes maintained his Buy rating on MU and raised his price target from $700 to $1,100 — a 57% increase and the highest target tracked by TipRanks. He sees roughly 65% upside from current levels.
Reitzes said his team feels “incrementally good” about the memory and AI semiconductor space. He also lifted long-term price targets for AMD, Intel, Marvell, Qualcomm, and SanDisk, arguing chipmakers will continue to gain value over traditional software companies.
Citi analyst Atif Malik also reaffirmed his Buy rating and nearly doubled his MU target from $425 to $840. He expects Micron to raise DRAM prices by 40% in Q2, following a sharper 100% price hike by Samsung in Q1.
Across Wall Street, MU carries a Strong Buy consensus based on 27 Buy ratings and 3 Holds over the past three months. The average price target sits at $638.52 — which would actually represent about 6% downside from current levels.
Memory Demand Outlook
JP Morgan analyst Jay Kwon said elevated memory pricing could last until at least late 2027, supported by long-term supply agreements that may stabilize an historically cyclical market.
“We believe the memory industry is undergoing a pivotal inflection stage,” Kwon wrote, suggesting the sector could shift from price-to-book to price-to-earnings valuation — a structural upgrade in how the market values these companies.
Western Digital weighed in separately, saying it is qualifying new high-capacity Ultrastar UltraSMR hard drives. The company argued that AI workloads may increasingly favor durable, long-term storage over raw speed — potentially positioning hard disk drives as more cost-efficient than SSDs for some AI applications.
Seagate CEO Dave Mosely echoed the strong demand picture but flagged caution around expanding factory capacity too aggressively, citing risks of oversupply if SSD investment outpaces actual demand.
As of Monday, MU was trading down more than 5% and the Samsung strike deadline of May 21 remains a near-term watch point for the entire memory-chip sector.
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