Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) saw its price target raised by Wedbush analysts to $200 from $165, who see recent developments in the memory market representing a major inflection point, calling it “the week that changed the memory world.”
Wedbush noted that demand trends across key memory and storage products have shifted significantly over the past several weeks.
“Our conversations suggest CSPs are forecasting significantly more forward demand than had been anticipated (through 2026),” analysts wrote, pointing to hyperscale customers driving higher requirements for RDIMM. This surge has left secondary markets sold out even at higher prices.
Spot DDR5 pricing has also moved higher, despite no material change in consumer demand. Wedbush believes this was likely tied to expectations of supply constraints as production mix shifts toward enterprise products. At the same time, legacy DDR4 parts remain tight, keeping prices elevated.
On the NAND side, enterprise SSD demand has picked up sharply, helping to push average selling prices higher. The analysts observed that a portion of this demand reflects “greater CSP requirements for compute SSDs (in-line with greater RDIMM demand),” while a global shortage of HDDs is also prompting customers to seek alternatives such as QLC-based NAND.
The firm said vendors have stopped quoting parts altogether, citing DigiTimes’ reporting that Micron had paused quotations.
“We believe it's all vendors and it is well beyond a reaction to Sandisk price increases,” Wedbush wrote.
The analysts expect a sharp reset in pricing once quoting resumes, with 10% a starting point for likely increases in spot DRAM pricing and contract prices for RDIMMs in Q4 potentially rising double digits.
NAND pricing is also now expected to climb in the current quarter, led by eSSDs, versus flat expectations as recently as August.
While Wedbush highlighted the sharp rise in demand, they acknowledged that the root cause remains uncertain.
“We are still trying to figure out the ‘why’ (e.g. what has changed at the CSPs to shift their requirements so significantly),” they wrote.
For Micron, the implications are positive. The analysts raised their fiscal Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 estimates to reflect the stronger environment and Micron’s updated guidance.
At the same time, Wedbush cautioned that its near-term forecasts remain below the bullish trends they are observing, reflecting both management’s conservative approach and lingering unknowns about what is driving the demand surge.
Valuation also got a reset. “Our new target is calculated by applying a 10x multiple to our FY’27 EPS estimates,” Wedbush wrote.
The firm acknowledged that this multiple is toward the upper end of where memory vendors tend to trade at peak cycle, but added that its longer-term assumptions for DRAM and NAND margins remain below 2018 cyclical highs, leaving “room for further upside,” particularly if high-bandwidth memory contributes positively.
Shares of Micron added 5.5% at about $169 on Thursday afternoon.