As spring wound down into summer this week, there were precious few companies that stood out amid all the carnage following the Federal Reserve announcement that… maybe, bond buying and other means of economic stimulus would soon be scaled back a bit.
One was Micron Technologies (NASDAQ: MU), which announced on Wednesday of this week profits were once again a fact of life.
Micron reported it broke a seven-quarter losing streak by earning four cents a share, or two cents higher than analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting, for the quarter ended May 30. Micron had posted a year-earlier Q3 loss of 32 cents U.S. a share. The Boise, Idaho-based company posted sales of $2.32 billion U.S., topping Wall Street's target of $2.25 billion U.S.
MU also said its gross profit margin rose to 24% in Q3 from 18% the quarter before. Gross margins for both dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and Negated And (NAND) flash products improved due to increases in average selling prices. The company credits boosts in DRAM gross margins to decreases in manufacturing costs.
Micron also forecast a stable DRAM and NAND pricing environment for the balance of this year.
At least four analysts raised their 12-month price targets on Micron stock after the Q3 report. Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets, Sterne Agee and Stifel raised their price targets to a range of $16 to $21 U.S.
Besides NAND Flash and DRAM, Micron also manufactures NOR Flash memory, as well as other memory technologies, packaging solutions and semiconductor systems for use in computing, consumer, networking, automotive, industrial, embedded and mobile products.
In addition, the Company manufactures semiconductor components for CMOS images sensors and other semiconductor products. Its manufacturing facilities are located worldwide, principally the U.S., China, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Puerto Rico and Singapore.
The company’s stock price joined the almost unison chorus downward on Thursday, having fallen 3.7% near the close of business to $13.46 U.S. The price hit a 52-week high on Wednesday at $14.11, its low for the past year having been plumbed at $5.16 late in October.
