Last night when the S&P 500 broad barometer of Wall Street performed a 3% downward correction on the U.S. Federal Reserve's halving its rate cut guidance for 2025, which temporarily tamped down overall bullish bets, shares of Micron Technology (MU) felt much more pressured by a self-estimated rather gloomy outlook. The stock of a well-known manufacturer of data storages like dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), flash memory "NOT AND" (NAND) chips to retain gigabytes of data when the power is off or solid-state drives (SSDs) is now about to hit its annual low after plunging by 15% in after-hours trading. My stock portfolio received an unpleasant blow to introduce a skunk at our cool garden party before Christmas. Indeed, if something has arrived (and, of course, I am talking about my perfectly predicted Broadcom's shine with a 35% jump within only 2 days), it usually means somewhere has departed, when it comes to Micron's sliding and some total value adjusting on Wall Street.

Well, if Broadcom (AVGO), NVIDIA, Meta, Google and some other giant and smaller techs are just providing most patient investors to buy more shares when asset prices are episodically rolling back from their fresh historical record highs, then it is probably a different story with Micron stocks. The inertia of a retreat may prolong a negative momentum in Micron for weeks or even for another two or three months before proper and eventual bottoming and then strengthening again amid its volatile landscape on charts.

The whole intrigue is that Micron issued its record-ever quarter in terms of both profit and sales. Its revenue for the last reporting period which ended on November 28 came out at $8.71 billion vs $8.68 of consensus estimates, $7.75 billion for the prior quarter and $4.73 billion for the same period in 2023. Its net income of $2.04 billion, or $1.79 per diluted share, compared to $1.73 according to an average analyst poll forecast, added 51.6% QoQ vs $1.18 per share in the previous quarter, not to mention a loss-making cycle between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023. Yet, the major difference between Broadcom's shining and Micron's disappointing case is that Micron's projection of its future revenue and profits fell deeply short of both the crowd's bets and expert predictions.

As for Broadcom, it sees continuing revenue growth from $14.1 billion in Q3 to $14.6 billion in the current quarter, with an implied profit of $1.51 per share vs an already historically record $1.42 per share in Q3. Yet, the most important part of Broadcom's projections was that its AI-based revenue would range from $60 billion to $90 billion from current customers by 2027, compared to the company's total revenue around $50 billion for the last four quarterly periods. One may easily understand why Broadcom was gaining so quickly but another chipmaker Micron is drowning.

Micron foresees its earnings at $1.43 per share, plus or minus 10 cents, in the nearest three months, which is severely lower than the Wall Street consensus of $1.91. Besides, the current quarter's revenue number was anticipated at $7.90 billion, plus or minus $0.2 billion, which also falls short of the widely expected $8.98 billion. Micron's official comments after earnings clearly pointed to lower memory chip prices and subdued demand for handsets and PCs in significant markets like China. Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO of Micron noted that consumer-oriented markets "are weaker in the near term", so that he anticipates "a return to growth" only "in the second half of our fiscal year". Despite he still remained optimistic about AI PC adoption "over time", Sanjay Mehrotra had to admit in prepared remarks that the PC refresh cycle "is unfolding more gradually", so that he expects "PC unit volume growth to be flattish in calendar (year) 2024, slightly below prior expectations," while research firm Gartner investigated that global PC shipments faced a 1.3% decline YoY to nearly 62.9 million units in Q3.

The stock has suffered a notable 44% significant decline, when initially dropping from its early June peak later in mid-summer, due to exactly the same kind of headwinds. At that stage, I was betting on a slowly and steadily refreshing cycle, yet the challenging situation aggravated instead. Frankly speaking, I would not advise anybody to rush into attempts of seeking instant dips for fresh buying of Micron shares. It would be better to wait some extra, despite I personally bought them before, sure at more expensive price, as I see it now. Later on, Micron may benefit from expected tax cuts and regulatory easing under the Trump administration, as the company is using a 1,400-acre mega campus territory to make DRAM chips in central New York state. Yet, the positive impact is by no means guaranteed and certainly will be postponed for better time.