Micron's Bonus Fight in Taiwan Adds to a 29% Slide From the Peak

Micron Technology shareholders had a rough end to last week. The stock fell 5.9% on Friday to close at EUR 781.80, caught in a broad technology selloff that hit chipmakers hardest. The drop widened the gap to the 52-week high to 29%, a retreat that has done little to dent a 210% gain since the start of the year.

The trigger was a wider flight from tech. AP pointed to mounting doubts about how long the artificial intelligence spending boom can last, alongside rising bond yields. Investors are increasingly questioning the pace of the multi-billion-dollar outlays, and reports of weakness in bonds issued by cloud provider CoreWeave added to the jitters about how the infrastructure buildout gets financed.

Micron carries unusual weight in that debate. According to Axios, the company is among the chipmakers expected to contribute nearly 40% of total earnings growth in the S&P 500 for the third quarter. That outsized role makes the stock vulnerable whenever confidence in Big Tech's capital spending wobbles, and the caution has spread across the entire semiconductor sector ahead of upcoming quarterly reports.

A Chinese Challenger and a Leadership Sale

Competition from Asia has been feeding the nervousness. The president of China's ChangXin Memory Technologies announced a DDR5 RDIMM memory module, with a market launch targeted for the end of 2026. Reports of advances by Chinese suppliers in denser memory cell architectures have sharpened worries about rivalry, and earlier coverage of technological progress at CXMT had already weighed on the sector.

On the disclosure front, a Wednesday SEC filing showed stock sales by Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer Michael Charles Ray. The transactions were made under a trading plan adopted on January 30, 2026, in line with Rule 10b5-1. Other mandatory SEC notices documented changes in the holdings of senior figures, including CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, without indicating open-market sales.

Union Rally in Taipei as Bonus Dispute Drags On

Closer to home, management faces friction on the labor front. On Monday, members of the union at the Taoyuan site gathered for a rally in Taipei, the latest turn in a long-running conflict over the company's bonus system. The action followed a ballot in which 1,994 members — 99% of those voting — backed authorization for a strike. The union stressed that the rally in the capital did not constitute a work stoppage, and no date for a strike has been set. Micron said it takes employees' concerns seriously and remains committed to good-faith dialogue.

Analysts Stay Bullish

None of this has shaken the sell side. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed its buy rating on October 13 with a price target of $1,900. DA Davidson had confirmed its own assessment on October 7, lifting its target to $3,000 from $2,100. Both firms see Micron's long-term prospects in the memory chip market intact, regardless of the current sector swings.