Stock Market Today, March 19: Micron Falls Despite Record Revenue Amid Margin and Capex Concerns

Micron Technology (MU 3.71%), which manufactures DRAM, NAND flash, and SSDs for various applications, closed Thursday at $444.27, down 3.78%. Shares moved lower despite record Q2 results and robust Q3 guidance, as worries about peaking margins and heavy capex weighed on the stock. Investors are watching how AI-driven memory demand supports future profitability. Trading volume reached 73.7 million shares, coming in about 102% above its three-month average of 36.5 million shares. Micron Technology IPO’d in 1984 and has grown 31,409% since going public.

How the markets moved today

S&P 500 slipped 0.28% to finish Thursday at 6,606, while the Nasdaq Composite also fell 0.28% to close at 22,091. Within semiconductor memory and storage solutions, peer Samsung Electronics closed at $200,500, down 3.84%, as investors weighed AI-chip demand against rising capacity and competitive pressure.

What this means for investors

Micron reported Q2 earnings yesterday that rocketed past Wall Street’s expectations as sales nearly tripled and EPS rose to $12.07 from $1.41 last year. Looking ahead to Q3, management expects sales and EPS to grow by 40% and 59% sequentially. The company also boosted its dividend payments by 30%.

However, management also announced that capex would exceed $25 billion in 2026 as it builds out DRAM and NAND capacity, spooking the market. That said, an analyst at Freedom Capital Markets believes that the AI industry’s ongoing shift from LLM training to inference should be a multi-year boom for Micron. Now valued at $500 billion, Micron could become the newest $1 trillion member.

Josh Kohn-Lindquist has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Micron Technology. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.