Throwing a Little Cold Water on the Micron Lovefest

The deluge of 13-F’s yesterday revealed huge (and some new) stakes of Micron (MU) by very smart tech investors. Coatue management revealed a 14.5 million share stake. Appaloosa and Duquesne upped their positions in the memory maker as well. To be fair Millenium, Point72 Hong Kong, and Bluecrest reduced their positions, but we mainly heard about the buys. Also remember that in January and February, Micron’s stock spent a lot of time in the low-to-mid $40’s. Then today, RBC analyst Amit Daryanani launched on the name with a bullish $80 price target, an outperform, and a thesis that investors are too negative on the memory cycle. I have know Amit for years and he is an excellent analyst – full stop. There is no but to that. He is smart, thoughtful, and taught me a lot about stocks I was…unwise about. He points out that the memory market is down from 15 players to 3, an excellent point for the long-term prospects of Micron. I remember visiting some of the 12 companies that have gone the way of the dodo in the early 2000’s – it was depressing. At any rate, Amit knows of what he speaks.