Micron stock gains as Citi ups price target to a new Street high into earnings

© Reuters. Micron stock gains as Citi ups price target to a new Street high into earnings

Citi Research analysts hiked their price target for Micron Technology (NASDAQ:) to a new Street high ahead of the company’s fiscal Q2 2024 report scheduled for March 20.

The global investment bank lifted the price objective from $95 to $150 and earnings per share (EPS) estimates for the fiscal 2025 year from $6.38 to $6.65.

“We expect the company to post upside to Consensus and increased guidance for F3Q24 given strong DRAM pricing and shipments of higher-priced, higher-margin, High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) which is shipping with Nvidia AI systems,” analysts said.

MU rose more than 3% in Friday’s premarket trading.

The new target represents a 50% to the chipmaker’s historic range, but Citi thinks the stock deserves a premium “given increasing AI exposure and other AI-exposed stocks such as AVGO and AMD have seen a 100% increase in their multiples,” added analysts.

“Micron remains our top pick and Buy-rated.”

The team expects Micron to report an FQ2 2024 loss per share of $0.28, compared to the consensus projection of $0.42 loss per share, attributed to higher margins.

Their revenue forecast of $5.30 billion, marking a 12% quarter-over-quarter increase, aligns with the consensus estimate of $5.30 billion, also reflecting a 12% rise from the previous quarter.