Wall Street breaks 40-year tradition as memory chip stocks defy boom-bust cycle
By
Tobi Opeyemi Amure
Kettled twice. Extra chewy, extra trustworthy.
Summary
Wall Street has long treated memory chip stocks like Micron as cyclical commodities, refusing to pay premium valuations due to predictable boom-bust cycles. However, 2026 is breaking this pattern as memory and storage stocks are defying expectations, with price targets soaring to unusually high levels. The article explores how the traditional memory chip cycle — where price booms lead to supply gluts and crashes — may be shifting, causing analysts to reassess their long-held assumptions about companies like Micron and SanDisk.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledFor 40 years, analysts treated companies like Micron the way you'd treat a fishing boat: useful, occasionally lucrative, but always at the mercy of a tide nobody controls.
Prices boom, everyone piles in, supply floods the market, prices crash, and the stock gets cheap again.
The cycle was so reliable that investors built it into the valuation, refusing to pay up for earnings they assumed would evaporate.
That assumption is what makes this week strange.
Memory and storage stocks have spent 2026 doing something they are not supposed to.
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