Why Did Micron (MU) Stock Surge On Monday?

Shares Micron (NASDAQ:MU) climbed nearly 6% on Monday to hit a new 52-week high of $52.03 per share, marking MU’s first close above $50 since September 2000. This substantial move from the semiconductor giant did not follow any real breaking news, but this a great time to see what Micron has been up to recently that might have facilitated this surge.

Recent News

Last month, Micron announced that it appointed a new senior vice president and chief financial officer, David Zinsner, to succeed Ernie Maddock.

Then, in late February, the company introduced three new 64-layer, second-generation 3D NAND storage products. These recent releases are designed to help smartphone markers provide the next wave of user experiences to their customers, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and facial recognition capabilities.

“Memory plays an increasingly critical role in delivering the bold new features we have all come to expect from our smartphones," Micron executive Gino Skulick said in a statement. "Micron uniquely delivers both mobile DRAM and 3D NAND, and our leading-edge designs continue to provide the performance demanded by the most advanced smartphones."

Major Value

Micron’s memory storage tech has been vital for decades, and the company looks poised to dominate the next generation of NAND. This dominance might give some investors the impression that Micron is currently trading similar to other high-tech stocks like Nvidia (NVDA).

However, Wall Street seemingly cannot keep up with Micron’s rapid growth, which helps keep its Forward P/E within the scope of a value investor. Micron is currently trading with a Forward P/E of 4.85, which looks outstanding against the S&P 500’s average 17. This also makes Micron one of the top value opportunities in the entire tech sector.

Growth

Before today’s surge, Micron saw its stock price soar nearly 100% during the last year and over 15% in the last four weeks alone.

Micron is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but the stock sports an “A” grade for Value and Growth in our Style Scores system. Our current Zacks Consensus Estimates call for the firm’s upcoming Q2 earnings to skyrocket 206% to hit $2.76 per share. On top of that, Micron’s sales are projected to reach $7.27 billion, which would mark 56% year-over-year growth.

Both of these projections should inspire a great deal of investor confidence for even the youngest of companies, but for a historic tech power like Micron, they look even more amazing. Micron has also received a slew of earnings estimate revisions within the last 30 days, with 100% agreement to the upside for its current quarter.

Micron is set to report its second quarter earnings results on March 22.

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