Why Micron Was Falling Today Even as the Tech Sector Rose
Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) were down as much as 5% on Tuesday before rebounding slightly to a 3.1% decline as of 10:48 AM EDT. While Micron's stock is known to be volatile, today's move was especially notable, as most of the technology sector was up for the day.
The reason behind the decline isn't hard to figure out; last night, Korean rival Samsung (OTC: SSNL.F) released its fourth-quarter earnings. Despite the current severe chip downturn, Samsung basically said it would maintain its investment plans in 2023. Maintaining supply growth in this environment could prolong the memory downturn, and the news sent all memory stocks down -- Samsung and Micron included.
In the fourth quarter, Samsung's memory division -- the one that competes with Micron in DRAM and NAND flash -- saw a 38% decline in sales relative to the same quarter last year, with the memory and foundry divisions' profits nearly wiped out. In fact, it was the lowest profit for Samsung's memory division since 2009.
Source Fool.com
