After a golden first half of the year, investors have been getting a crash course in what gravity feels like from the stock market these past few weeks. A combination of poor job numbers and an increase in interest rates from Japan combined to give equities some of their worst sessions and weeks in years. It didn’t help that some of the big tech names, like NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA), which had done much of the work in pulling up the market all year, had been softening since June.
But as we wrote about last week, these broad, market-wide selloffs can create some real golden opportunities. When an index like the S&P 500 falls 10% in just three weeks, you can be sure that almost every stock out there will take some heat, regardless of how well it’s been performing.
Micron: Hero to Zero
Take semiconductor giant Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU), for example. The Idaho-headquartered stock logged gains of nearly 100% through the middle of June, but by Wednesday of last week, had shed some 45% of that.
In tandem with the S&P 500's start to turn down, most of Micron’s losses only started in the second half of July, going on to pick up serious pace through the middle of last week. However, there are several reasons to think Micron’s selloff is overdone, and we could be looking at the mother of all entry opportunities.
Micron's Fundamentals Remain Strong
Take the company’s fundamental performance, for starters. Both headline numbers from its June earnings report smashed analyst expectations, with top-line earnings coming in 29% higher than the consensus and bottom-line revenue also landing a solid beat. It was also Micron’s highest revenue print in two years and its first time posting consecutive quarters of profitability since the back half of 2022.
As reports go, it doesn’t get much better than that, especially considering all the rate increases and shifts in market sentiment since then. Yet, such is the viciousness of the recent selling that Micron shares are back trading at 2021 levels, and you can’t help but feel that it makes them a bargain in their own right.
Micron's Low RSI: A Key Indicator for Timing Your Entry
Alongside the company’s fundamental performance, the stock’s technical setups are also attractive, particularly its Relative Strength Index (RSI). The RSI is a popular indicator for seeing how oversold or undersold a stock might be. It considers a stock’s recent trading performance, typically over the past 14 days, and spits out a number between 0 and 100. Anything over 70 suggests a stock is extremely overbought and potentially near a top, while anything under 30 suggests a stock is extremely oversold and potentially near a bottom.
Last Wednesday saw Micron’s RSI hit 25, its lowest reading since 2018, which all but confirmed the recent dip was overextended and likely to start running out of steam. Watching and waiting for an RSI reading that extreme can be one of the most reliable ways to time an entry, and it’s already starting to look like that’s exactly what Wall Street has done. Since tagging that low last week, Micron’s shares have logged three straight days of gains and are up almost 10%.
Micron's AI and Memory Demand Fuels Analyst Optimism
The recent analyst comments and updates tie all this together. KeyCorp didn’t hesitate to reiterate their Overweight rating on Micron shares last week or give them a refreshed price target of $145. Considering the stock closed below $95 on Monday evening, that indicates an impressive targeted upside of more than 50%.
Their bullishness was echoed by the team at Citi, who not only “remain bullish” on the semiconductor industry as a whole but have named Micron their top pick for the rest of the year. As analyst Christopher Danely wrote in a note to clients, “Now is the time to double down,” as he sees no impending slowdown in spending on AI or memory.
Considering there was blood on the streets last week, and the stock is only just starting to show a potential bottom, this was a brave call to make. But in the context of the solid fundamentals and technicals behind it, it feels like a well-informed call and one that investors could do well to listen to.
