6 November 2026 · Tickr Lab · 4 min read

Micron, a deep dive

Micron earned more in fiscal 2026 than in the seventeen years before it combined, and its shares are 46% under June’s high. The trend, twenty years of falls, the earnings, the multiple and the news.

Micron earned $85.0 billion in its fiscal year to September 3, 2026: more than the $52.2 billion it earned in the seventeen fiscal years before it put together. On Thursday, November 5, its shares fell 17.2% to $658.73, 46% under the closing high of $1,213.56 on June 25. About $627 billion of market value has gone since June, $154 billion of it on Thursday.

Here is the whole picture, one piece at a time: the trend, twenty years of falls, the earnings, the record against estimates, the multiple, the news, and two races.

Micron: fiscal 2026 net income against the seventeen years before it, and the share price over the past year

The trend

Thursday was Micron’s 5th-worst day since 2006 and its first close under the 200-day average since May 2025: $658.73 against $755.27, −12.8%. The 50-day average is $966.59. The 14-day RSI is 27, under 30. The screener’s Signal reads Very Weak; the rule that fired is Breakdown: the price well under its 200-day average and still falling (−39% in a month). The Signal is a reading of the trend, not an instruction.

Micron over the past year with its 50- and 200-day averages and RSI

Twenty years of falls

On closing prices this is Micron’s sixth fall of 45% or more since 2006. The deepest was −89%, from October 16, 2006 to November 20, 2008. Each of the five before this one was made back in full, after 5 months to 4.8 years from the low; the quickest was the last, from April to September 2025. That is a record of what happened, not a forecast of what will.

Micron since 2006: how far the close stood under its highest close so far, with every fall of 45% or more

The earnings

Revenue in the quarter to September 3 was $54.2 billion, against $11.3 billion a year earlier (+379%). Net income was $37.7 billion (+1,078%), and the gross margin 87%. In Q2 FY23 the gross margin was −33%. For the quarter to come, the company guided revenue of $61.5 billion, give or take $1.5 billion; it reports on December 16.

Micron quarterly revenue and net income since fiscal 2023, the gross margin, and the guided next quarter

The earnings record

In each of the last 12 reports, earnings per share (as the company states them before one-off items) came in above the analysts’ average estimate. The latest, on September 30: $33.42 against $31.82, +5.0%.

Micron earnings per share against the estimate, last twelve reports

The multiple

On the last four quarters’ earnings Micron trades at 8.9x; on next year’s estimate, at 3.1x (Twelve Data’s forward P/E, moved to Thursday’s close). Articles this week quoted a fiscal 2027 estimate of $176.5 a share, which would be 3.7x.

Memory is a business whose earnings rise and fall with chip prices, and its record is worth a look. In December 2018, with the stock down 54% from its May high, the P/E got to 2.3x. Over the next 18 months, earnings per share fell 84%. In 2022 it went the same way: the P/E was 5.5x on September 26, 2022, the low of that year’s 50% fall, and by June 2023 the last four quarters added up to a loss. Two cycles are a record, not a rule; the reports from December 16 on will say how this one goes.

Micron since 2016: share price on a log scale, and the P/E on the last four quarters, with 2018 marked

The news

An AI model reads each article about Micron and scores its tone from −1 to +1. The daily average went from +0.42 on October 26 to −0.19 on November 5, the first day below zero since we began on October 17, on 51 articles, the most of any day. The reasons the articles gave for the fall: a cautious outlook from Kioxia, a memory rival (November 2); China’s CXMT and its plans for memory; worry that the new Congress slows the AI data-centre build-out; a reported pause at Micron’s $4.5 billion Taiwan plant after a labour dispute; and weak forecasts from Qualcomm, with talk of phone and PC demand. Those are the articles’ explanations, not ours.

Article tone about Micron a day at a time since October 17, with the reasons the articles gave for the fall

Five years in a race

$10,000 put into Micron on November 5, 2021 was worth $90,336 on Thursday, and $166,423 at the closing high in June. The same $10,000 in Nvidia: $61,035; in the chip fund SMH: $30,097; in the S&P 500 fund SPY: $15,655. Prices only, dividends left out.

$10,000 in Micron, Nvidia, SMH and SPY over five years

2026, the memory trade

This year Micron was up 325% at its high and is up 131% now. SanDisk went as high as +884% and stands at +241%; Seagate +69%, Western Digital +55%, NetApp +58%. For scale, Nvidia is −3% and the S&P 500 fund +8%. SK hynix’s US shares began trading on July 10, so it has no year to date; it is in yesterday’s Memory, stock by stock.

Memory stocks year to date in 2026, with Nvidia and the S&P 500 fund

What this is, and is not

A record of where Micron stands after a hard week, measured the same way the screener measures every stock. None of it says what comes next. Every figure here is on Micron’s page, and the memory companies are on the Ideas page under AI watchlist.