What Wall Street’s looking for from Micron’s Q3 earnings report

Nvidia might be the biggest stock in the world.

But for Robinhood’s retail traders, Micron has become the most important.

The memory chip specialist’s incredible run over the past month has made its shares a magnet for activity. A year ago, Micron’s monthly volumes on Robinhood were about 6% of Nvidia’s. Now, they’re more than doubling the AI chip leader.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Throughout 2026, net buying activity in Micron has been superior to Nvidia as well. That’s been reflected by their relative price action as well, with producers of memory far outperforming consumers of it.

Analysts are expecting sales of $35.6 billion for the quarter with adjusted earnings per share of $20.49 when Micron releases its fiscal Q3 results after the close today. Those figures are meaningfully higher than management’s guidance for the quarter — but the memory specialist’s financials and guidance have blown away Wall Street’s best guesses in its past two reporting periods in particular. For Q4, analysts are anticipating revenues to grow to $43.1 billion with adjusted EPS swelling to $25.31.

“We believe investor positioning remains very bullish given the dramatic share price run-up and optimism around the potential impact of long-term customer agreements,” writes Goldman Sachs analyst James Schneider.

The options market is pricing Micron to move about +/- 10.5% in reaction to today’s results. The stock dropped after reporting five of its last six quarterly results, but those have obviously been modest bumps in the tracks for a runaway train. Traders seem to spend all quarter bidding up Micron because of its robust outlook and pricing power before being “disappointed” by the proof in the pudding.

While “this time is different” is said to be the scariest phrase in finance, times are always different. And occasionally, conditions do fundamentally change and never return to their past state. I’m neither technologically nor financially savvy enough to tell you if this is one of those times, but what seems pretty clear is that the near-term results are heavily expected to affirm an improvement in Micron’s profitability. The chip company’s gross margins are higher than they’ve ever been, with forecasts calling for these to get even better going forward.

“Demand for DRAM and NAND memory continues to exceed the industry's ability to supply, resulting in an environment in which pricing continues to rise,” writes Needham analyst Quin Bolton. “We believe pricing on new contracts is well above the near-term levels assumed in our model (new DRAM and NAND pricing agreements could be at levels 50-100% higher) giving us confidence to meaningfully raise our forward estimates.”

By one token, what’s best for Micron in the short term isn’t necessarily the healthiest for the tech heavyweights fueling the AI build-out. Hyperscaler capex budgets going up and memory chip prices going up are the same thing. 

To a certain extent, those upsized investment plans don’t mean more AI capacity; they mean higher memory chip prices. To be sure, that pressure is alleviated by technological improvements that boost efficiency in other parts of the supply chain, whether in accelerators, packaging, or networking.

Micron’s margins, and persistent pricing power, are the hyperscalers’ higher future depreciation costs.

On the other hand, it’s hard to argue that anything bad for Micron is good for the market as a whole. Especially after the highest-flying components of the AI trade got speed-checked on Tuesday, and are on a bit more of a precarious footing. After all, as recently as June 2 the S&P 500 closed at a record high while Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon were in an average drawdown of about 15%. 

The kumbaya outcome is that long-term supply agreements put a ceiling on memory chip price inflation while allowing Micron to sustain margins that are elevated relative to its history.

On that note, here’s Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore:

“We think Micron may announce the closing of additional deals, but wouldn't necessarily expect more clarity on the terms - as they are likely in conversations with multiple customers and don't want to tip their hand. We think these deals are important for market sentiment around the case for further multiple expansion, and the stock may go down if there's limited new information. But in that we would be looking to add to positions as new disclosures don't change what we know - which is that customers see DRAM as increasingly tight over a multiyear time horizon – something not priced in at 9.3x our new FY27 EPS, in our view.”