Micron stock headed for worst day since 2020 after disappointing guidance
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra speaks before US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on “how the CHIPS and Science Act and his Investing in America agenda are growing the economy and creating jobs,” at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum in Syracuse, New York, on April 25, 2024.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Micron shares plummeted 16% on Thursday — heading for their worst day since March 2020 and the start of the Covid pandemic — after the chipmaker issued disappointing second-quarter guidance in its earnings report.
The stock fell to $86.78 in early afternoon trading, about 45% down from its all-time high in June.
For the fiscal second quarter, Micron said it expects revenue of $7.9 billion, plus or minus $200 million, and adjusted earnings per share of $1.43, plus or minus 10 cents. Analysts were expecting revenue of $8.98 billion and EPS of $1.91, according to LSEG.
On the earnings call, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said the company, which provides computer memory and storage, is seeing slower growth in parts of consumer devices and is experiencing “inventory adjustments.”
“Micron expects further delay in the PC refresh cycle and cited pockets of elevated customer inventory in smartphones,” analysts at Stifel wrote in a report to clients. The firm kept its buy rating on the stock but lowered its price target to $130 from $135.
Micron reported an earnings beat from the first quarter, with earnings per share coming in at $1.79, topping the $1.75 average analyst estimate. Revenue jumped 84% from a year earlier to $8.71 billion, meeting estimates. The growth was driven by a 400% increase in data center revenue due largely to demand for artificial intelligence, Micron said.
“We continue to gain share in the highest margin and strategically important parts of the market and are exceptionally well positioned to leverage AI-driven growth to create substantial value for all stakeholders,” the company wrote in its report.
WATCH: Micron shares plunge
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In the weeks leading up to Nvidia’s third-quarter earnings report, investors debated whether the markets were in an AI bubble, fretting over the massive sums being committed to building data centers and whether they could provide a long-term return on investment.
During Wednesday’s earnings call with analysts, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang began his comments by rejecting that premise.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Huang said. “From our vantage point we see something very different.”
In many respects, Huang’s remarks are to be expected. He’s leading the company at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom, and has built its market cap to $4.5 trillion because of soaring demand for Nvidia’s graphics processing units.
Huang’s smackdown of bubble talk matters because Nvidia counts every major cloud provider — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle — as a customer. Most of the major AI model developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Meta, are also big buyers of Nvidia GPUs.
Huang has deep visibility into the market, and on the call he offered a three-pronged argument for why we’re not in a bubble.
First, he said that areas like data processing, ad recommendations, search systems, and engineering, are turning to GPUs because they need the AI. That means older computing infrastructure based around the central processor will transition to new systems running on Nvidia’s chips.
Second, Huang said, AI isn’t just being integrated into current applications, but it will enable entirely new ones.
Finally, according to Huang, “agentic AI,” or applications that can run without significant input from the user, will be able to reason and plan, and will require even more computing power.
In making the case of Nvidia, Huang said it’s the only company that can address the three use cases.
“As you consider infrastructure investments, consider these three fundamental dynamics,” Huang said. “Each will contribute to infrastructure growth in the coming years.”
Reversing the slide
In its earnings release, Nvidia reported revenue and profit that sailed past estimates and issued better-than-expected guidance. Last month, Huang provided a $500 billion forecast for sales of the company’s AI chips over calendar 2025 and 2026.
The company said on Wednesday that its order backlog didn’t even include a few recent deals, like an agreement with Anthropic that was announced this week or the expansion of a deal with Saudi Arabia.
“The number will grow,” CFO Colette Kress said on the call, saying the company was on track to hit the forecast.
Prior to Wednesday’s results, Nvidia shares were down about 8% this month. Other stocks tied to the AI have gotten hit even harder, with CoreWeave plunging 44% in November, Oracle dropping 14% and Palantir falling 17%.
Some of the worry on Wall Street has been tied to the debt that certain companies have used to finance their infrastructure buildouts.
“Our customers’ financing is up to them,” Huang said.
Specific to Nvidia, investors have raised concerns in recent weeks about how much of the company’s sales were going to a small number of hyperscalers.
Last month, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet all lifted their forecasts for capital expenditures due to their AI buildouts, and now collectively expect to spend more than $380 billion this year.
Huang said that even without a new business model, Nvidia’s chips boost hyperscaler revenue, because they power recommendation systems for short videos, books, and ads.
People will soon start appreciating what’s happening underneath the surface of the AI boom, Huang said, versus “the simplistic view of what’s happening to capex and investment.”
WATCH: Nvidia posts Q3 beat
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