Then, after the close on Tuesday, Micron Technology dropped its earnings report—and the theater filled back up.
Revenue of $41.5 billion. Gross margins of 84.9%. EPS of $25.11. Every figure landed well above what Wall Street had expected, blowing past a Street consensus of $35.9 billion in revenue and $20.86 in earnings per share. More startling than the numbers themselves was the guidance: Micron told investors to expect $50 billion in revenue next quarter — roughly $6.5 billion more than analysts had penciled in, at a consensus of $43.6 billion. Its stock, which closed Tuesday at $1,048.51, jumped sharply in after-hours trading, pulling up NVIDIA, AMD, and the broader semiconductor complex with it.
“Tech investors will be in a very positive mood and breathe a sigh of relief,” Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients, with the typically bullish analyst reaching for the kind of hyperbole that sounds extreme until you check the tape. He called it a “drop the mic quarter.”
Other analysts argued that this might be quite a bit more than that. Buried inside the earnings call and the cascade of analyst notes that followed was something that could reshape how investors think about memory chips—and possibly the entire AI infrastructure trade—for a generation.
