Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) have climbed about 10-fold from their 2024 closing price of about $84. The memory maker’s stock jumped 239% in 2025, and as I write it’s more than tripled again this year, to roughly $903.
If the stock ends 2026 over about $571, it’ll be just the second time Micron has put up back-to-back triple-digit years. The first was 1993 and 1994, when shares rose 146% and 137%. (These and the other annual numbers here are calendar-year price returns from year-end closes, without dividends.)
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
Micron’s own history doesn’t rule out more gains. But after looking at what followed its past booms, I think investors should expect far less from here.
Image source: Micron.
The stock tends to fall before the profits do
After its 1993-94 run, Micron stock climbed another 80% in 1995. The shares peaked on Sept. 11, 1995, though, and ended the year around 58% off that high before sliding another 26% in 1996.
But the business hadn’t peaked when the stock did. Micron made $328.5 million in its first fiscal quarter of 1996 (roughly September to November 1995), more than in any earlier quarter.
Then its memory chip prices slid faster than the company could lower its costs, and net income shrank to $188 million, then $58 million, then $19 million in the next three quarters.
The next two booms followed a similar pattern. Micron stock climbed 300% in 2009 and lost 24% in 2010. Yet fiscal 2010 (which ended in early September 2010) saw net income of $1.85 billion, a swing from a $1.9 billion loss a year earlier. The stock was looking ahead. In fiscal 2011, Micron’s average DRAM selling prices slid 39%, and earnings sank around 91% to $167 million.
After a 243% gain in 2013, the shares climbed another 61% in 2014 and then fell 60% in 2015. Again, full-year profits still looked strong. Fiscal 2015 net income of $2.9 billion was just a bit under fiscal 2014’s $3.0 billion.
By fiscal 2016, with DRAM prices off 35%, Micron had a $276 million loss.
In short, Micron’s stock has tended to fall while its full-year profits still looked strong — and before those profits dropped.
Has the turn already started?
The stock might already be repeating this pattern. Micron’s shares hit a closing high of $1,213.56 in late June and now sit about 26% below it.
