Micron Technologies Stock Tanks: What’s Behind Friday’s Bloodbath?
Another brutal day for chip stocks—Micron's shares got shredded like a poorly timed crypto trade. Here's why the bears feasted.
Memory market malaise hits hard
When the semiconductor sector sneezes, Micron catches pneumonia. The memory chip specialist got crushed as analysts revised growth projections downward—apparently AI can't fix everything.
Earnings whispers spook investors
Street chatter suggests inventory corrections are biting harder than expected. Those 'strategic reserves' of DRAM chips? Looking more like dead weight these days.
The crypto parallel Wall Street won't admit
Funny how volatile tech stocks suddenly become 'too risky' while traders shrug at Bitcoin's 10% daily swings. Selective risk tolerance at its finest.
New Trump tariffs on chips?
Before market open that day, Trump was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying, "I'll be setting tariffs next week and the week after on steel and on, I WOULD say, chips." He made this remark aboard Air Force One, on the way to Alaska for his summit meeting on the Ukraine war with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Image source: Getty Images.
Trump added that the tariffs would be relatively low at the outset, in order to give chip companies time to build out their manufacturing in this country. After such a grace period, the rates would rise dramatically. The president, however, did not provide any exact percentages of these tariffs.
Even U.S.-based companies like Micron often rely at least partially on Asian factories to produce their wares. Micron has manufacturing facilities not only in its native state of Idaho and in Virginia, but in locales across the Pacific Ocean such as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan. As such, it and numerous peers will be directly affected by Trump's promised new tariffs.
Hold steady
Micron hasn't yet commented on the president's apparent plan. Of course, there won't be any direct effect until -- and, importantly, if -- the U.S. leader pulls the lever on them. He has shown to be somewhat erratic about this, so no investor should trade in or out of the stock (or that of any other domestic chip company) until they're firmly established.
