Micron Stock Jumps 3% After Crushing Q4 Earnings and Revenue Forecasts

Another quarter, another earnings beat—Micron just delivered the numbers Wall Street craves.

The Memory Maker's Surprise

Q4 performance smashed expectations across the board, sending shares climbing 3% in after-hours trading. Revenue projections? Topped. Earnings targets? Obliterated. The chip sector's rollercoaster continues its upward swing.

Market Reaction

Traders piled in as the earnings dust settled—proving once again that beating analyst estimates remains the easiest way to trigger algorithmic buying sprees. The 3% gain puts Micron comfortably ahead of semiconductor peers.

Behind the Numbers

Memory chip demand continues defying economic headwinds, with data center and AI workloads driving the upside. Forget macro concerns—when you beat by enough, even the bears have to cover.

Another quarter of manufactured optimism—because nothing fuels a rally like lowered expectations and spreadsheet gymnastics.

Micron gains as AI pushes up cloud memory revenue

Micron makes memory and storage chips, including high-bandwidth memory, which is a key piece in artificial intelligence systems. That puts the company in direct play with firms like Nvidia, whose AI chips need huge amounts of this specialized memory to work at scale. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra called it out directly, saying, “As the only U.S.-based memory manufacturer, Micron is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the AI opportunity ahead.”

Micron’s biggest revenue generator right now is its unit that sells memory to cloud providers. That segment pulled in $4.54 billion during the quarter, more than triple what it made last year. The demand is being driven by AI platforms, many of which rely on cloud services powered by high-performance memory setups.

But not all of the company’s operations are growing. Micron’s data center unit reported $1.57 billion in revenue, which is a 22% decline compared to the same period a year ago. Despite all the HYPE around AI infrastructure, the drop shows that not every corner of the business is riding the wave at the same speed.

The company’s total revenue was up 46% year-over-year. That kind of jump WOULD usually light up the entire tech sector, but the broader market wasn’t in the mood to celebrate.

Market pulls back as AI momentum cools across big tech

On the same day Micron reported strong earnings, the S&P 500 closed down 0.55% at 6,656.92. That came after it touched a new intraday high earlier in the session. The Nasdaq Composite dropped almost 1%, ending at 22,573.47, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 88.76 points, or 0.19%, closing at 46,292.78.

The tech pullback came as investors started questioning whether the AI rally could really last. Nvidia lost 2.8% just one day after it said it would invest $100 billion in OpenAI. The announcement had briefly sent tech stocks soaring, but now some investors are comparing it to the dot-com bubble, especially the dynamic between buyer and supplier.

Another big loser was Oracle, which had jumped more than 50% over three months on AI hype. It slid 4.4% on Tuesday. The concern isn’t just the money, it’s also about whether the U.S. power grid can handle the growth plans these companies are laying out.

Despite the pullback, smaller stocks fared a bit better. The Russell 2000 hit an all-time high during the session before closing down 0.2%. Enthusiasm over the Federal Reserve’s rate cut last week helped support the index.

Still, market watchers are holding their breath for Friday’s release of the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the inflation measure the Fed watches most closely. That number could shift expectations again around whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the central bank will keep cutting rates. Powell said Tuesday that “equity prices are fairly highly valued” and called the current path “a challenging situation.”

Join Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes