Tech stocks surge as Micron earnings ease AI fears, oil falls further

DA Davidson lifted its price target on Micron to $3000 from $2100, citing the memory-chip maker's growth prospects as AI drives demand for memory. The $3000 target implies about 195% upside from Micron's shares, which were trading at $1018 before the bell on Wednesday. Analyst Gil Luria said Micron is on a growth trajectory for the next 3-5 years that the market has not yet acknowledged, and the brokerage expects memory demand to exceed supply in 2027 and 2028. DA Davidson values Micron at about 19 times its fiscal 2027 earnings estimate and reiterated its Buy rating, noting that longer-term supply agreements with customers should make the business more predictable and that demand is coming from the largest companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and Apple. The firm also said de-specing, or chipmakers' use of less memory per AI processor, should not necessarily weaken Micron's outlook, since using less memory could reduce AI system performance and eventually push customers to buy more. Micron shares have risen 266% this year.

Bank of America estimates that the total addressable market of the global memory industry, or TAM, will rise to 2 trillion US dollars in 2030, up from its previous estimate of 1.8 trillion dollars, viewing the industry as entering a long-term growth cycle driven by demand for artificial intelligence memory and high average selling prices. Global DRAM and NAND sales combined previously peaked at about 170 billion US dollars in 2018 amid the cloud boom, before a recovery in 2025 generated sales of roughly 210 billion US dollars, even as the NAND market weakened. Meanwhile, the annual run rate of the memory market in the third quarter of 2026 has already exceeded 1 trillion US dollars, with revenue in that quarter at about 278 billion dollars, which annualizes to roughly 1.1 trillion dollars. Bank of America also expects DRAM and NAND sales to grow at a compound annual rate, or CAGR, of about 21% over the four years starting in 2027, with sales rising from roughly 900 billion US dollars in 2026 to 1.4 trillion dollars in 2027 and continuing to grow through 2030, reflecting a long-term supercycle. Under assumptions of 2 trillion dollars in sales, a 50% operating margin, a 25% tax rate and a price-to-earnings ratio of 13 times, Bank of America estimates that the fair market value of the memory industry could reach 10 trillion US dollars. For Thai investors, this theme relates to depositary receipts, or DRs, referencing Micron Technology shares that trade on the Thai stock market, such as MICRON01, MICRON19, MICRON03 and MICRON80, since Micron is a maker of memory products and data storage systems that stands to benefit from rising long-term demand for DRAM, NAND and AI memory.