Micron Rises 6% Before a $35.16 Billion Buyback Starts December 9

Micron Technology shares rose 6% to $733.98 in afternoon trading, while Seagate Technology jumped 11% to $512.44 and Western Digital climbed 11% to $291.63, according to 24/7 Wall St.'s November 9 report, as value investors returned to memory and storage names after a sharp post-midterm selloff.

Two days earlier, on Friday, November 6, CNBC's Halftime Report gave the bull case a louder platform. One panelist argued that Micron will buy back $100 billion of stock at its depressed multiple. That figure was one panelist's opinion, not company guidance. Micron has actually authorized a $35.16 billion share repurchase program, and it starts December 9.

The gap between those two numbers frames the trade.

Why did memory and storage rebound?

Value investors zeroed in on Micron for its low earnings multiple and its buyback capacity, while AI shares drew investors back into the sector; NVIDIA, by contrast, was moving on its own company-specific news. Micron's 6% gain recovered only part of the ground it lost during the previous week's chip rout.

Hard-drive makers rallied harder. That cuts against the valuation-first framing: the biggest moves belonged to Seagate and Western Digital, both driven by hyperscaler and AI storage demand rather than by a cheap headline multiple.

How cheap are these stocks on paper?

The multiples come from market data and shift with the share price, but they frame the argument clearly.

• Micron: 9x trailing 12-month price-to-earnings ratio; 4x forward P/E.
• SanDisk: 7x trailing P/E, the lowest of the four names; 4x forward P/E.
• Western Digital: 9x trailing P/E; 11x forward P/E.
• Seagate: 24x trailing P/E; 12x forward P/E.

By the forward measure, both drive makers carry higher multiples than Micron.

What does Micron's earnings run rate look like?

Micron's fiscal Q4 2026 report on September 30 gave the bulls their numbers. Revenue climbed 379.3% year over year to $54.23 billion, and free cash flow reached $33.2 billion for the quarter. For Q1 FY2027, management guided revenue to $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion.

On the post-earnings call, Micron President and Chief Operating Officer Manish Bhatia said: "We are seeing stronger demand drivers than we've seen before." He added: "As we've gone through working on our fiscal year '27, we commented that we have more than 75% of our shipments committed for the year."

That commitment matters because Micron sells DRAM and NAND flash, including high-bandwidth memory that pairs with AI accelerators. Memory pricing swings with industry supply, which gives Micron's earnings a sharper cyclical edge; strategic customer agreements now give the company multi-year demand visibility.

Where do hard drives and flash fit?

Seagate reported Q1 FY2027 revenue of $4.23 billion on October 27, up 61% year over year, and disclosed that a major cloud provider had qualified its heat-assisted magnetic recording, or HAMR, Mozaic platform. Western Digital's October 22 report showed revenue of $4.38 billion, up 55.5% year over year, alongside a 17% dividend increase.

Seagate and Western Digital sell mass-capacity hard disk drives to cloud operators; neither makes DRAM or NAND. Both lift capacity by packing more data onto each disk.

Both have locked up much of their future supply under long-term customer agreements. SanDisk, spun out of Western Digital, now operates as a pure-play flash storage company, which puts it closest to Micron's NAND business. Its eight-for-one stock split takes effect November 19.

Can the cheap multiple survive the peak-earnings debate?

CNBC's Mike Santoli framed the skeptical case: "If the market believed the earnings, it wouldn't be under four times." Memory is cyclical, and a low P/E can signal that earnings sit near a peak. Bears also point to Micron's heavy capital spending and its reliance on AI expansion.

The bulls answer with Micron's own outlook. Management said on the post-earnings call: "We made the statement that we really don't have line of sight to when supply and demand balance."

The next test arrives on December 9, when the repurchase program starts buying shares against whatever earnings and memory pricing then prevail.

A conservative approach may make sense while the debate plays out; if Micron's earnings hold, its discount to Seagate's 24x trailing multiple should narrow, and if pricing rolls over, that discount will read less like a bargain than a warning.