We recently published a list of Top 10 AI Stocks to Watch After Latest Earnings and Analyst Ratings. Since Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) ranks 5th on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder, said while talking to CNBC in a latest program that the next few weeks until the US election would be “confusing” for many since no one could say anything with conviction about who is going to be in the White House.
Lee said that the market is going to trade “well” into the upcoming Fed meeting where he expects “some” rate cuts amid the labor market needing support and positive inflation data. Asked whether he expects a 25bps rate cut or a 50bps cut, Lee said:
“ A 25 or 50 can have both hawkish or dovish implications so I think it’s ultimately whether Fed Chair Powell comes across as this is the start of a cycle they are confident that we are moving back towards neutral and whatever number they make is quite dovish and positive but if it seems like that it’s dragging along the FOMC members and then there is even concerns about hard landing then I think the market can view anything they do as negative,” Lee said.
However, Lee said he believes the outcome would be positive.
For this article, we chose the top 10 buzzing AI stocks on the back of the latest earnings and analyst ratings. With each company, we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A close-up view of a computer motherboard with integrated semiconductor chips.
Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 120
Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) shares fell after the company received multiple downgrades from Wall Street analysts.
Raymond James cut its price target on Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) from $160 to $125 but kept an Outperform rating. The reduction reflects slower short-term growth in non-high bandwidth memory DRAM and NAND markets. However, the firm sees this as a temporary issue and expects the DRAM market to recover by the second half of 2025.
“Data center demand remains strong due to HBM, while AI is boosting smartphone content growth,” said Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri in a note. “PC and smartphone makers appear to have stocked up in advance of price hikes, leading to a softer second half of 2024.”
Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) is still on track to meet its HBM goals, and Raymond James expects yield improvements to boost margins.
BNP Paribas Exane downgraded Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) to Underperform from Outperform and slashed its price target from $140 to $67. Analyst Karl Ackerman predicts the company’s weak performance will continue. Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) peaked at $153 in mid-June but has declined since.
Despite this, some analysts remain optimistic. Citi Research still considers Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) a top pick, citing strong DRAM prices expected to rise 66% in 2024 and 14% in 2025.
Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) posted quarterly results recently which came in better than expected but the market didn’t welcome the in-line guidance and rising expenses. However, this short-term view misses the fact that Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) is investing heavily in high bandwidth memory (HBM) production that is expected to generate billions in sales by fiscal 2025 compared with just hundreds of millions in 2024.
After the earnings, Arya reiterated a Buy rating and gave a $170 price target on Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU).
“Mgmt emphasized both CY24 and CY25 volumes are now fully sold out with pricing generally secured, providing visibility to its healthy sales and margin expansions (HBM is GM accretive),” Arya said.
Here is what Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) said about HBM during fiscal Q3 earnings call:
“Our HBM shipment ramp began in fiscal Q3, and we generated over $100 million in HBM3E revenue in the quarter, at margins accretive to DRAM and overall Company margins. We expect to generate several hundred million dollars of revenue from HBM in fiscal 2024 and multiple billions of dollars in revenue from HBM in fiscal 2025. We expect to achieve HBM market share commensurate with our overall DRAM market share sometime in calendar 2025. Our HBM is sold out for calendar 2024 and 2025, with pricing already contracted for the overwhelming majority of our 2025 supply. We are making significant strides toward expanding our HBM customer base in calendar 2025, as we design-in our industry-leading HBM technology with major HBM customers. We have sampled our 12-high HBM3E product and expect to ramp it into high-volume production in calendar 2025 and increase in mix throughout 2025.”
ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Stock selection in the IT sector proved to be the largest contributor to performance, particularly driven by the strong performance of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) The company, which designs, develops, manufactures and sells memory and storage products, continued its strong performance alongside other AI beneficiaries as the anticipated demand for new and additional storage essential for housing and training large language AI models continues to grow.”
Overall, Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) ranks 5th on Insider Monkey’s list titled Top 10 AI Stocks to Watch After Latest Earnings and Analyst Ratings. While we acknowledge the potential of Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU), our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MU but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
