Key Takeaways
- President Trump’s brokerage accounts sold $251,000 to $515,000 of Micron stock in August, plus $1 million to $5 million of AMD, and bought as much as $25.3 million of Meta Platforms.
- Outside managers run those accounts, but selling Micron is still a bet that the memory shortage behind its run is near its peak.
- Micron’s gross margin went from 2.7% in fiscal 2023 to 80.7% in fiscal 2026, which shows how much its profits depend on memory prices.
- Analysts expect normalized EPS to more than double to $176.55 in fiscal 2027, so the numbers say the sale came early, and Micron’s next report is the test.
Micron Technology (MU) is up 338% in a year, and a new disclosure shows President Trump’s portfolio heading for the exit.
His accounts sold Micron in August, sold Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that month too, and made their biggest purchase in Meta Platforms (META).
What exactly happened
Trump’s newest filing with the Office of Government Ethics lists 517 trades. Three of them stand out:
- Micron: net sales of $251,000 to $515,000
- AMD: a sale of $1 million to $5 million
- Meta: net purchases of $5.1 million to $25.3 million, the month’s largest buy
Third-party firms manage these accounts, so Trump didn’t make the call himself. And next to the Meta purchase, the Micron sale is small potatoes.
But it’s the most interesting one to me for the very simple reason that…whoever sold made a real bet on the memory cycle. After a 338% year, every Micron holder is making that same bet, one way or the other.
Margins show where the cycle stands
Memory is a commodity. As Morningstar analyst William Kerwin wrote, “We view DRAM and NAND as commodity-like products prone to market supply/demand dynamics and steady pricing erosion.”
You can see it in Micron’s gross margin. It fell to 2.7% in fiscal 2023, then climbed to 80.7% in fiscal 2026 as AI demand ran into a memory shortage…
That’s far above the 45.2% from fiscal 2022. (And I mean, fiscal 2023 hardly bears mentioning, right?)
The latest quarter shows the shortage at full tilt. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, revenue rose 379% to $54 billion. Adjusted EPS came in at $33.42, up from $3.03 a year earlier.
When the shortage eases, memory prices fall, and Micron’s earnings fall with them. Selling now is a bet that day is close.
Analysts don’t see a peak yet
Wall Street expects profits to keep climbing for two more years. Consensus has normalized EPS going from $75.52 in fiscal 2026 to $176.55 in fiscal 2027 (35 analysts), and then to $206.89 in fiscal 2028 (36 analysts)…
(That fiscal 2027 figure is well above the latest quarter’s pace for a full year, so the estimates assume memory prices keep rising from here.)
Even so, the stock prices in very little of it. As of Oct. 16, Micron traded at 5x forward earnings, which is how the market prices profits it expects to fade. If fiscal 2027 earnings came in at half the consensus, Micron would still earn more than it did in fiscal 2026.
The sale looks early
So who’s right? For now, the numbers side with holding.
An 80.7% gross margin on a commodity won’t last forever, and fiscal 2023 showed how fast it can unwind. Still, with estimates rising through fiscal 2028 and the stock at 5x forward earnings, Micron has a lot of room for those estimates to come down before it looks expensive.
At some point the shortage will end, and Micron’s earnings will drop hard when it does. But selling in August looks early to me. Plenty of the cycle’s profit still seems to be ahead.
Of course, Micron’s next quarterly report is the real test. Any sign that memory prices are cooling would cut those estimates fast.
So what is Micron stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what Micron could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
