Technology

Is This the Turning Point for Micron?

micro chip
Source: Thinkstock
Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) reported its fiscal third-quarter financial results Thursday after the markets closed. The tech giant had $0.54 in earnings per share (EPS) on $3.85 billion in revenue, compared to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates of $0.56 in EPS on $3.90 billion in revenue. The same period from last year had $0.79 in EPS on $3.98 billion in revenue.

Despite the miss on earnings, investors aren’t taking it too hard. Part of the reason is that Micron has had a weak year so far, with the stock down 31% year to date. Investors might find themselves asking if it really can get any worse from here or if this is a good buying opportunity.

The company is a global leader in advanced semiconductor systems. Micron’s broad portfolio of high-performance memory technologies, including DRAM, NAND and NOR flash, is the basis for solid state drives, modules, multichip packages and other system solutions. The company’s memory chip solutions enable the world’s most innovative computing, consumer, enterprise storage, networking, mobile, embedded and automotive applications.

In April the company issued $1 billion in senior note, and prior to this another $1 billion was issued in senior notes back in February. The combined issuance costs were $21 million.

During the fiscal third quarter, the company recognized aggregate losses of $18 million, primarily from repurchases of $269 million principal amount of the company’s 2032 notes in a series of transactions for $782 million in cash.

D. Mark Durcan, CEO of Micron, said:

In the fiscal third quarter, Micron experienced market headwinds driven primarily by weakness in the PC sector. We remain focused on the long term as we continue to deploy advanced process technology to enable leading-edge products and drive manufacturing efficiency.

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Investments in capital expenditures were $734 million for the quarter. The company ended the third quarter of fiscal 2015 with cash and marketable investments of $7.33 billion. At the same time, cash flows from operations were $1.34 billion.

For the June 15 settlement date, the company saw its short interest fall to 63.47 million shares from the previous reading of 65.81 million. Short interest is currently at its lowest level of the year.

Shares of Micron closed Thursday relatively flat at $24.02. Following the release of the earnings report, shares were initially up 0.5% at $24.14 in after-hours trading. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $35.22 and a 52-week trading range of $23.66 to $36.59.

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