Technology

Is Micron Finally Starting to Bottom?

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) hit a new 52-week low in Friday’s trading session after taking a big hit in the big market sell-off on Thursday. This actually marks a multiyear low for the semiconductor giant. But how much farther will Micron fall, or has it already found a bottom?

Looking at what analysts are saying, the general consensus for a price target is $27.02, an upside of roughly 81.5% from current prices. However the lowest price target is right at the $15 mark, which happens to be just above current prices.

In the past week alone, the stock has dropped 16.7%. However, most of this drop happened on Thursday when the broad markets sold off. 24/7 Wall St. picked out a few of the major stocks that headed up the drop on Thursday, including Micron.

Even before this past week, shares of Micron had been falling over the course of 2015. In fact the stock was down nearly 58% year to date. Shares actually hit a multiyear low that dates back to 2013, when the company was in its growth phase.

A big part of this drop is attributable to lower-than-expected personal computer sales throughout the year. Other major semiconductor companies have suffered as well, as a result of these weaker sales. For example, year to date Intel and SanDisk are down 22.4% and 48.2% respectively.

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An old analogy about DRAM was that it was treated like a commodity but the price never really increased. This was part of the reason Micron was valued at around 10 times earnings on a normalized basis when the company was in its growth phase. Currently Micron trades at 5.5 times its expected fiscal 2015 earnings and at 6.5 times its expected 2016 earnings.

However, shares may have found a bottom. As bad as the marketwide sell-off was Thursday, Micron shares have bounced. Also most analysts have taken positive stances on the company despite this drop.

Since Monday a slew of analysts have issued calls on Micron:

  • Baird downgraded it to a Neutral rating from Outperform and lowered its price target to $15 from $36.
  • Argus has a Buy rating but lowered its price target to $26 from $32.
  • Deutsche Bank reiterated a Buy rating with a $28 price target.
  • Piper Jaffray reiterated a Buy rating with a $25 price target.
  • Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy and set its price objective at $19.
  • Wells Fargo upgraded Micron to a Market Perform rating from Underperform.
  • WedBush downgraded it to a Neutral rating from Outperform and lowered its price target to $19 from $26.
  • Topeka Capital Markets has a Buy rating with a $27 price target.
  • Cowen has an Outperform rating but lowered its price target to $28 from $30.

Most of the positive calls expect upside of at least 68%.

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Shares of Micron were up 1% at $14.89 on Friday morning. The stock has a 52-week trading range of $14.24 to $36.59.

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