Micron Surges 8% to Record High. Citi, Deutsche Bank Sharply Raise Target Prices, 1.27 Trillion Market Cap Nears Meta

TradingKey - After TD Cowen raised Micron ( MU )'s price target to $1,500, another two top investment banks have raised their price targets for Micron.

Specifically, Deutsche Bank significantly raised its price target for Micron Technology from $1,000 to $1,500 in its latest research report, while Citi sharply raised its target from $840 to $1,200.

Driven by price target upgrades from several top Wall Street investment banks, Micron hit an all-time intraday high of $1,133.24 today. As of press time, the stock was still up 8.12% at $1,127.94, bringing its latest market capitalization to $1.27 trillion, leaving it just about a 15% gain away from Meta ( META )'s market capitalization of $1.47 trillion.

[Source: TradingView]

Deutsche Bank's target price upgrade is driven by management's ongoing optimization of its financial outlook mid-quarter, the continued strength of memory prices, and Micron's track record of consistently beating Wall Street consensus estimates. Consequently, there is significant room for upward revisions to the market's earnings forecasts for the company.

The firm noted that the core driver of this rally is the rapid adoption of AI applications, which has significantly boosted memory demand and further widened the supply deficit. In Deutsche Bank's view, this trend is unlikely to reverse in the coming years and will continue to support Micron's stock price.

Deutsche Bank stated that, overall, Micron's fundamentals will remain robust ahead of the upcoming earnings release. The industry supply-demand imbalance is expected to persist through the second half of 2026, 2027, and 2028, with the supply gap potentially widening further.

Citi's upward revision of Micron's price target is primarily based on memory chip prices outperforming market expectations since the beginning of the year. The new target of $1,200 corresponds to a valuation of 10 times the company's projected 2027 earnings per share, translating to an estimated potential total return of approximately 17.6%. Citi believes that strong demand from data centers, combined with tightening industry supply, will continue to drive a steady upward trajectory in average selling prices (ASPs) for memory products.

Regarding price hike forecasts, driven by the surge in demand related to data center computing power and lagging production capacity supply, Citi expects average DRAM prices to surge by 200% full-year in 2026, with quarter-on-quarter increases of 37%, 13%, and 11% from the second to fourth quarters, respectively. The average price of NAND flash is also projected to rise by 186% for the full year, with quarter-on-quarter gains of 45%, 17%, and 6% across three quarters. Data shows that DRAM spot prices have already risen by 22% since April, with current spot prices sitting 21% higher than contract prices, making subsequent contract price hikes highly probable.

Looking at the supply and demand dynamics, Citi projects a 5% global DRAM supply deficit in 2026, with the current industry upcycle expected to extend into 2027 and HBM prices continuing to climb next year. This year's memory price hikes are primarily driven by the supply-demand imbalance in conventional DRAM; for instance, Micron's DRAM bit capacity growth is projected to be only 42% in 2026.