They Said Micron Could Hit $300. A Year Later, It’s Trading Near $900
Wells Fargo went out on a limb with a bold Micron price target that almost every analyst ignored, and what happened next exposed just how badly even the most bullish forecasts can misread a generational shift in chip demand.
On Nov. 7, 2025, Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers raised his price target on Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU | MU Price Prediction) to $300 from $220 and kept his Overweight rating. Memory chipmakers are known for brutal boom-and-bust cycles, so $300 counted as a confident number.
It turned out to be a cautious one. Micron is up 272.1% from the November 6, 2025 close to today’s $885.75. Over the same stretch, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) rose 13.0%. Rakers had the direction right. What nobody predicted was how big the memory boom would get.
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Why Wells Fargo Raised Its Target
Wells Fargo’s case rested on what it heard from management. According to the firm, meetings with Micron’s chief executive and its operations chief at the time reinforced its view on the company’s execution, competitive position and memory-industry trends. No other firm made the same call that day, so Wells Fargo was out there alone with its number.
The execution story already had evidence behind it. Micron had beaten EPS estimates in fiscal Q4 2025, reporting $3.03 against a $2.69 estimate. On a dividend-adjusted basis, the prior day’s close was $238.05, so $300 pointed to solid, reachable upside.
Earnings Reports That Blew Through the Target
The first test came on Dec. 17, 2025. Fiscal Q1 revenue of $13.64 billion came in above the $12.88 billion estimate, and gross margin expanded to 56% from 38.4%. Even so, the stock finished 2025 at $285.19, still below the target.
The turning point was March 18, 2026. Revenue grew 196.3% to $23.86 billion, EPS of $12.20 beat the $9.31 estimate, and the board raised the dividend 30%. Shares were trading near $441 around that report, well past $300. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra summed it up: “In the AI era, memory has become a strategic asset for our customers.”
Then it sped up. In June, fiscal Q3 EPS of $25.11 beat the $20.28 estimate as HBM4 reached high-volume shipments to Micron’s lead AI accelerator customer. On September 30, 2026, fiscal Q4 revenue rose 379.3% to $54.23 billion, with gross margin at 87.0%. Management forecast fiscal Q1 2027 revenue to $60 billion to $63 billion . It said more than 75% of fiscal 2027 shipments are already committed under 26 strategic customer agreements that run through 2030. Manish Bhatia said on the call that “DRAM is the principal constraint versus logic or power to the data center.”
Wells Fargo Now Sees a Much Bigger Number
In September 2026, the same firm trimmed its target to $1,400. A cut that still lands several times above the original $300 tells you how far the story had moved. Others have gone even higher. JPMorgan set a $1,540 target in October, and DA Davidson went to $3,000.
Right now, Wall Street is close to unanimous. Nine analysts assign Micron a Strong Buy rating, 36 a Buy rating, three a Hold rating and one a Strong Sell rating. The average target is $1,561.91 against a share price of $877.1 on the morning of Monday, Nov. 2.
Verdict: Nailed It
Wells Fargo’s call was right on the rating, right on the direction and right on the reasons. The firm pointed to execution and industry trends, and those are exactly what drove the move. Its target was simply too low. Anyone who acted on the Overweight rating has made far more than the $300 target promised. Can you really fault an analyst for underestimating a year in which quarterly revenue more than quadrupled?
Where Micron Stock Stands Now
Micron sits within a 52-week range of $192.37 to $1,254.61. It trades at about 13x trailing earnings and 6x forward earnings. The stock slipped this week after Samsung’s earnings showed how high the bar has become for memory stocks.
Bull case: management says it has no line of sight to when supply and demand balance, and with most of 2027 already signed, a forward multiple in the single digits looks cheap.
Bear case: memory has always been cyclical, and once new clean rooms come online in late 2028, today’s 87.0% gross margin will be the high-water mark that investors measure everything against.
On balance, the evidence leans bullish. Signed volumes, floor-and-ceiling pricing bands and a fresh revenue guide give Micron more visibility than it has had in past cycles. Even so, with a beta of 2.226, expect sharp drawdowns along the way. If competitors’ results keep showing the boom is slowing, the multiple will contract before the earnings do.
When an upgrade or target raise depends on fundamentals that are speeding up, the direction of the call is worth far more than the number attached to it.
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Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
