Micron Outshines Nvidia in Trading Volume as Memory Supercycle Rewrites Valuation Rules

The memory chipmaker that investors once dismissed as a cyclical commodity play is now drawing more daily trading firepower than Nvidia. In six of the past nine sessions, Micron has seen higher dollar-volume turnover than the GPU giant, with an average $47 billion worth of shares changing hands each day against Nvidia’s $34 billion. The shift, which first emerged on March 19, has only widened since.

Behind the noise lies a quiet recalibration of how the market prices memory. JPMorgan argues the sector should no longer be judged by price-to-book ratios as a classic cyclical industry, but by price-to-earnings multiples — the same lens used for structural growth stories with visible earnings streams. The numbers back that thesis: KB Securities forecasts average selling prices for DRAM and NAND will jump 194% and 244% respectively in 2026, while cloud providers now account for 70% of all memory shipments and are locking in multi-year supply deals.

Yet the stock itself has taken a breather. Micron shares recently slid 5.75% to €588.10, wiping 13% off the weekly price. That pullback from a record high of €685.40 leaves the stock 14.2% below its peak. Still, the year-to-date gain stands at a blistering 118.62%. The tension is plain: the business fundamentals keep accelerating, but the price already embeds years of future growth.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Micron?

That growth is anything but theoretical. Micron generated $23.9 billion in revenue during its second fiscal quarter, a 196% year-over-year surge, while gross margins pushed past 70%. Earnings per share hit $12.07 — up 756% — and management guided for $18.90 in the current period. The catalyst is high-bandwidth memory: Micron reports its entire HBM3e and HBM4 production run through the end of 2026 is already sold out, with HBM4 set to power Nvidia’s next-generation accelerator architecture. On the storage side, the company launched the 245-TB Micron 6600 ION SSD, the world’s largest commercially available solid-state drive, targeting hyperscale data centers.

On the valuation front, analysts are reaching for new targets. BofA’s Vivek Arya lifted his price objective from $500 to $950, citing surging AI memory demand and forecasting the AI data-center market will reach $1.7 trillion by 2030, up from an earlier estimate of $1.4 trillion. D.A. Davidson initiated coverage with a $1,000 target, and Deutsche Bank’s Melissa Weathers quickly followed with the same figure, both citing an AI-driven “memory supercycle” the market still underestimates. Consensus revenue for fiscal 2026 stands at $76 billion, implying 103% growth. Twenty-seven of 30 analysts rate the stock a buy, and the forward P/E sits at just 7.7 — well below the semiconductor sector average of roughly 30.

Even as bullish calls pile up, insider selling provides a sobering counterpoint. Executives and directors have recently disposed of shares worth approximately $52.4 million, including sizable blocks from CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and director Steven Gomo. Morningstar remains cautious, pointing to the inherently cyclical nature of DRAM and NAND: when supply catches up or demand softens, prices and margins can collapse quickly.

The market is effectively betting that memory has undergone a permanent structural upgrade — from a boom-and-bust commodity to a bottleneck component in the AI buildout. With HBM capacity sold out through 2026, the next test will be whether those locked-in orders convert into high-margin shipments before new fabrication plants ease the pinch. Until then, Micron trades less like a memory cyclist and more like the gatekeeper of an AI supply chain that has no obvious ceiling.

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Micron Stock: New Analysis - 18 May

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