Micron's All-Time High Meets a Reality Check: Renaissance Sells While Analysts See No End to the Memory Crunch

Renaissance Technologies trimmed its Micron stake by nearly 30% in the first quarter, paring its position to 2.1 million shares. The move comes as the memory chipmaker's stock sits at an all-time high of €833.10, up 878% over the past twelve months. The hedge fund's reduction alone does not signal a fundamental shift — Renaissance has repeatedly built and exited Micron over short periods — but it adds a concrete positioning data point ahead of a week heavy with macro releases.

The sell-side narrative, however, remains emphatically bullish. Susquehanna jacked its price target from $600 to $1,750 — nearly a tripling — citing DRAM pricing gains of 50% to 60% sequentially in the second quarter and NAND jumps of 75% to 100%. The bank sees supply staying constrained through at least 2027, driven by changes in KV-cache offloading that slow the build-out of new memory capacity. Together with DA Davidson and Mizuho, the three most recent analyst calls yield an average target of roughly $1,467. Micron has closed at a fresh 52-week high, hitting €833 on Friday after printing a daily range of €802.60 to €839.90 on volume of about 60.5 million shares.

From Seoul comes a competitive complication. Samsung has begun sampling its seventh-generation HBM4E memory, the first company worldwide to do so. That puts Samsung roughly six months ahead of SK Hynix and Micron, both of which do not expect to deliver samples until the second half of 2026. Yet Micron's entire HBM4 production capacity for that year is already locked in under multi-year contracts, and the company is spending $2 billion to expand its Manassas, Virginia, facility. Samsung's technological edge, for now, meets a market where Micron is simply sold out.

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

That scarcity is structural, not cyclical, according to Micron's chief operating officer Manish Bhatia. Speaking at a JPMorgan investor conference, he stated that key customers can currently secure only about 60% of their memory needs, and that shortages across DRAM, HBM, and NAND will persist well beyond 2026. The numbers back the optimism: last quarter's revenue tripled to $23.8 billion, net income decupled to $13.8 billion, and the operating margin hit 67.6%. For the current quarter, management guided revenue between $32.75 billion and $34.25 billion, with diluted EPS of $18.90, plus or minus $0.40.

The stock's approach of the €1,000 mark has revived speculation about a share split. Micron last split its shares in May 2000 at a 2-for-1 ratio, the same it used in 1995. A repeat would roughly halve the current price to around €464 and fits within the authorized share count of three billion. The company has made no official announcement.

The real test arrives on June 24 at 10:30 p.m. German time, when Micron reports fiscal third-quarter results. The analyst consensus range — $33.7 billion to $40.9 billion in revenue — is unusually wide, reflecting genuine uncertainty even among professionals about the pace of AI investment. If the numbers confirm that scarcity, not speculation, is driving the rally, the split discussion could quickly become formal.

Before that, a dense macro calendar will test investor appetite. The week ahead brings the ISM Manufacturing PMI on June 1, JOLTS data on June 2, ADP employment and ISM Services PMI on June 3, weekly jobless claims on June 4, and the May non-farm payrolls report on June 5 at 2:30 p.m. German time. The question for Micron's holders is whether the AI infrastructure trade can absorb both hedge-fund profit-taking and macro crosswinds. The close at the top of Friday's range keeps momentum intact. The next technical markers: can buyers defend €803 and, more critically, break through the €840 resistance zone before earnings?

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Micron Stock: New Analysis - 31 May

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