News and analysis

Ravencoin (RVN) is down 10.1% this week to $0.0115, underperforming the broader crypto market, where Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 3.3% to $111,600. The decline comes amid growing fears of a potential U.S. government shutdown on October 1, with bets on this scenario reaching 77% on Polymarket. The last shutdown, which lasted from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, pushed BTC lower by 11%. If history repeats, Bitcoin could fall toward $100,000, while RVN may once again test its strong support at $0.0100. Since launch, the token has never dropped below this level, and every approach has triggered a sharp rebound. The most recent example was in June, when RVN bounced 141.5% from this threshold. Given this history, the chances for another upside scenario remain high.

One of my portfolio's favourites, Micron Technology (MU), refused to rise further immediately after posting another three months of solid growth. Its share price edged in the extended trading hours on the hot heels of the report, then slid by 2% during the first minutes of the regular session on Wednesday. For me, there's nothing surprising or discouraging in it, as Micron stock's sustainable rise from $120 in late August to $170 in mid-September, on hot market expectations before earnings release, was accomplished too quickly. This couldn't have gone without any damage to future performance. And there are always hope-buyers looking to take profits on facts. If so, making this halt at a campsite between $155 and $170 looks relevant, even though a tripling in Micron's cloud memory sales to $4.5 billion caused the whole group-wide revenue to spike by 46% YoY to reach $11.32 billion. Both numbers topped expectations.

Citing "tight" supply and "healthy" demand environment for DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chips, Micron is planning to hike its investments in the semiconductor sector of the US to $200 billion, also projecting its current quarter's midpoint profit at $3.75 per share on revenue of $12.5 billion, plus or minus $300 million. The expert pool of Wall Street was betting for Micron CEO's own forecast of $3.10 per share on $11.9 billion in total sales. All together it looks like a fascinating adventure for an almost inevitable hike to new and previously unknown heights. Pricing exceeded expectations for both DRAM and NAND (non-volatile flash memory to store data, used mostly in SSDs, smartphones, and USB drives). Hard disk drives (HDD) supply shortages are also good for NAND demand.

Personally, I believe in targets well above $200, and possibly even before Christmas. Only a very high bar of blowout numbers from other behemoths like Broadcom and Oracle prevents immediate price gains for Micron. Analysts at Wedbush hastily raised Micron's price target to $200 "on strong memory cycle outlook" beforehand, even one week ahead of the report. Barclays raised its target for Micron to $195 today. Wolfe Research and many other famous investment houses put it around $200 as well. KeyBanc just set its new price target at $215 several hours ago vs $160 before the release. The most reputable JPMorgan put its target at $220.00 from $185.00 while maintaining an Overweight rating. This is a sign of deep underestimation, and I join JPMorgan's estimates eagerly.

Apple Co was actually the last mega cap tech leader, which stubbornly refused to join other flagships' trend of a sharp take-off in stock prices to update their historical highs. Trillion-dollar corporations like Nvidia, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Oracle and Broadcom, and then Google and Tesla have performed this job in a pretty good manner, one after another, but IPhone maker has remained largely untouched so far by the overall upward momentum on Wall Street. Each of those great companies was soaring sharply at certain time points during the year, to be swept away by a wave of profit taking. All these remarkable climbs, however, contributed much to the gradual rise of broader Wall Street indicators to higher peaks, step by step. And now it's probably Apple's turn to become the next playmaker.

Insufficient new sales in the reshaping of the Chinese gadget environment, which is growingly divided between local manufacturers like Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung and Oppo, has been the major problem preventing the investment community from adding more Apple to their investment portfolios. Official presentations of the latest iPhone models are more as a basis for jokes about the lack of real innovative solutions and gathering dust, not going far beyond device's thinness, barely noticeable improvements in display and camera resolution or some superior materials. Many consumers were rather reluctant to upgrade their former models to new ones. This month's event was no exception, with Apple's stock price sliding pessimistically from above $240 to around $225 in three days, from September 8 to September 10. Experts and the crowd did not immediately gain faith in the sales capacity of Apple's newest line-up.

The price performed a clearly bullish somersault after Reuters' reports that Apple has asked at least two of its Asian suppliers, Luxshare Precision and Foxconn, to boost the entry-level production of the iPhone 17 model by as much as 30% to 40% due to "strong pre-orders", citing "people familiar with the matter". More consumers than Apple initially anticipated chose the cheaper $799 iPhone 17 over the premium Pro models, which started at $1,099. This probably happened because the standard iPhone 17 is narrowing the gap with previous higher-priced versions. The company now has a higher chance to defend its market share thanks to features including simultaneous language interpretation. Its all-day battery life with faster charging plus modified AI features also matter.

As a result, Apple's price first bounced back to above $240, and then added up to 7% more to hit1 the $257.3 mark intraday, which was less than $3 per share below the all-time high for Apple stock. The iPhone maker's shares are retreating to nearly $250 from there and could even pierce the support area below that round figure, but this could unlikely prevent the new-baked positive sentiment. Medium-term targets like $280 or even $300 could be in play, riding the wave of general enthusiasm concerning other tech stocks.

Bitcoin (BTC) is down 2.2% this week to $112,711, while Ethereum (ETH), the leading altcoin, has fallen more sharply by 6.7% to $4,180. Despite the declines, there are no clear fundamental reasons weighing on the crypto market. In fact, sentiment remains broadly positive as Bitcoin ETFs, including IBIT from BlackRock, FBTC from Fidelity, and GBTC from Grayscale, have attracted $2.37 billion in inflows over the past two weeks. Optimism is also supported by fresh record highs in stock markets and the Federal Reserve’s recent rate cut. From a technical perspective, Bitcoin continues to trade above the midpoint of its five-month upward channel. This consolidation phase could end at any time, and when an upside breakout occurs, it will open the path toward $150,000–$160,000.