Micron's 29% Retreat From Its Peak Draws a Buy Call as Chip Selloff Spreads

Micron Technology shares fell 5.9% on Friday to €781.80, dragged down by a sector-wide retreat in technology stocks as rising bond yields and mounting questions over the durability of artificial intelligence spending sapped risk appetite before the weekend.

The pullback has widened the stock's gap to its 52-week high to 29%, a measure of how far sentiment has shifted for a company that has still gained 210% since the start of the year.

Yields, CoreWeave and the AI Payback Question

Macro forces did most of the damage. Higher sovereign bond yields make it harder for technology companies to finance their investment programs through cheap credit, while investors are increasingly debating when the enormous sums committed to data centers and semiconductors will translate into sustainable returns. AP reported on the concerns over the staying power of AI-related outlays.

Nervousness was compounded by reports of weakness in bonds issued by cloud provider CoreWeave, which raised fresh questions about how the infrastructure buildout will be financed. Media coverage also pointed to intensifying competition from China and uncertainty over how long existing supply bottlenecks will persist — the kind of headlines that quickly feed fears of a premature end to the current memory cycle.

Nearly 40% of S&P 500 Earnings Growth

Against that gloom stands the operating reality. According to an Axios report, Micron, Nvidia and Broadcom together are expected to account for almost 40% of total earnings growth in the S&P 500 for the third quarter — a concentration that underscores how central the leading chip names have become to the index, and how exposed their valuations are to any wobble in spending plans.

That earnings pressure cuts both ways. The same key role that makes Micron a profitable participant in the global server buildout also amplifies its vulnerability whenever doubts surface about the investment pace of the largest technology companies. Investors are treading carefully ahead of upcoming quarterly reports, wary of possible softness in capital expenditure budgets.

Rosenblatt Reaffirms Its Buy

Kevin Cassidy of Rosenblatt Securities is not among the worriers. The analyst reiterated his buy recommendation on Friday and explicitly described the selloff in memory stocks as overdone, framing the move as a temporary overshoot rather than a structural turning point.

His view finds support in the demand shifts underway. Micron's position in advanced memory technology gives it pricing power that should help cushion the effects of temporary rate anxiety, even if persistently high interest rates or hyperscaler budget cuts would eventually be felt. Media reports also suggest future capacity utilization remains a live topic of debate among market participants.

Insider Filings and a Chinese Challenger

Corporate disclosures added detail to the week's news flow. A Form 4 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday showed share sales by Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Michael Charles Ray, executed under a trading plan adopted on January 30, 2026 in accordance with Rule 10b5-1. Further SEC filings documented changes in the holdings of senior figures including CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, without indicating sales on the open market.

On the competitive front, the president of Chinese rival ChangXin Memory Technologies reportedly announced a DDR5 RDIMM memory module, with a market launch targeted for the end of 2026. Reports of progress by Chinese suppliers on denser memory cell architectures have added to competition concerns and accompany the debate over demand for high-performance memory.

For now, the correction is sharpening the focus on what matters: the fundamental need for capable memory remains intact, even as the market debates the price of financing it.