Micron earnings: After a quarter of debate, how bad has the memory market gotten?
By Wallace Witkowski
Published: Sept 18, 2018 2:40 p.m. ET
Shares are 30% off 18-year high reached at beginning of quarter
marketwatch.com
excerpt:
Earnings: Of the 27 analysts surveyed by FactSet, Micron on average is expected to post adjusted earnings of $3.33 a share, up from the $3.14 a share expected at the beginning of the quarter, prior to Micron forecasting $3.23 to $3.37 a share. Estimize, a software platform that uses crowdsourcing from hedge-fund executives, brokerages, buy-side analysts and others, calls for earnings of $3.35 a share.
Revenue: Wall Street expects revenue of $8.25 billion from Micron, according to 27 analysts polled by FactSet. That’s up from the $7.98 billion forecast at the beginning of the quarter, prior to Micron forecasting revenue of $8 billion to $8.4 billion. Estimize expects revenue of $8.28 billion.
Analysts expect sales of DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, the type of memory commonly used in PCs and servers, to surge 46% to $5.92 billion. Wall Street has forecast a 18% rise to $2.19 billion in sales of NAND chips, the flash memory chips that are used in USB drives and smaller devices such as digital cameras.
Stock movement: Micron shares touched an 18-year high of $64.66 just before the fiscal fourth-quarter started, their highest price since Sept. 21, 2000, when they traded at $65.81. Shares declined to $58.95, or by 10% over the next three weeks, leading up to fiscal third-quarter earnings, and since then have dropped nearly 23% since the last report. In comparison, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.54% has gained 5.1%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.76% has risen 2.4%, and the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX, +0.84% has declined 1.8% since Micron’s last earnings report.
[much more plus charts at the link] |
