Storage Price Rally Could Extend Into Fourth Quarter, Wall Street's Average Price Target for Micron is $154.9

BlockBeats News, August 16th. According to Barron's, one of the recent drivers behind the storage stock rebound is SanDisk's (SNDK) strong long-term outlook for the NAND market. KeyBanc expects a 15% to 20% quarter-on-quarter increase in DRAM prices in the third quarter of 2026, followed by another 15% increase in the fourth quarter; NAND prices are projected to increase by 30% to 40% in the third quarter and another 15% in the fourth quarter. Through simple compound interest calculations, compared to the second quarter, DRAM is expected to accumulate a price increase of approximately 32% to 38% by the end of the year, and NAND around 50% to 61%.

Despite the significant previous increases in storage prices, the upward trend continues, surpassing market expectations, and whether the price increases of DRAM and NAND can continue until the fourth quarter is seen as a key variable for the storage sector in the near term.

On valuation, UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri has given Micron Technology (MU) a target price of $1625. Due to the current supply shortage keeping short-term profitability high, UBS did not consider earnings from 2027 to 2028 but based it on the expected EPS for 2029, applying a multiple of around 11 times earnings. UBS believes that even by 2029, despite the gradual normalization or downturn of the storage industry, Micron's long-term profitability may still be higher than in past cycles.

UBS also mentioned that an increase in Long-Term Agreements (LTA) as a percentage of sales could reduce the performance volatility in the storage industry caused by capacity expansions, oversupply, and price declines in the past. FactSet data shows that Wall Street analysts have an average target price of $1549 for Micron, higher than its closing price of $970.20 on August 14th.