Micron Just Reported the Best Quarter in Memory History — Then Got Sued for Price-Fixing
Micron Just Reported the Best Quarter in Memory History — Then Got Sued for Price-Fixing
The memory sector just got hit by three bullets at once. And they all landed on the same day. $美光科技(MU)$
Strike One: Antitrust Lawsuit
Samsung, SK Hynix, and $MU have been sued for allegedly coordinating to restrict DRAM supply and artificially inflate prices.
The timing is almost poetic. Micron just delivered a historic earnings print — revenue up 346% year-over-year, gross margins at 84.6%, orders locked in through 2028. The ink wasn't even dry before the antitrust filing dropped.
The market isn't panicking over the fine. It's panicking over something much bigger: if regulators start dismantling the pricing power narrative, the entire investment thesis changes overnight.
Strike Two: Insiders Are Selling. Nobody Is Buying.
$MU's CEO sold shares at the top.
$GLW's CEO unloaded $30.7 million worth of stock last month — at the highs.
Insider buying? Zero. Not one purchase.
Nobody understands a company's prospects better than the people running it. When every insider is selling and not a single one is buying, that's not noise. That's a signal.
Strike Three: Valuations Are Already Pricing in Perfection
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Corning $GLW: P/E of 90x $康宁(GLW)$
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Micron $MU: P/E of 49x
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$MU implied volatility: 81.7%
HBM sold out. Pricing power locked in. Margins through the roof. All of that has already been priced in.
The story has been told. The market has been listening. Now it's time to ask what comes next.
My Take
The memory supercycle itself isn't over. HBM demand remains structurally undersupplied. Multi-year contracts keep expanding. $22 billion in customer commitments are still backed by deposits, take-or-pay clauses, and contractual pricing floors.
But one thing has fundamentally shifted today: the pricing power narrative just took a bullet it can't easily shake off.
SK Hynix's Nasdaq ADR debut on July 10 was supposed to be the next re-rating catalyst for the sector. That story still holds structurally — but with an antitrust lawsuit now hanging over the industry's pricing practices, the multiple expansion thesis has to be discounted.
The supercycle isn't dead.
But the era of the market freely rewarding pricing power with premium multiples? That may have just quietly ended today.
Not financial advice.
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