Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) shares slipped about 2% in Thursday premarket trading, changing hands near $1,046.37. The pullback comes despite a run that has lifted the stock nearly 600% over the past 12 months and pushed the memory chipmaker's market value past $1 trillion — a level only a small group of U.S. companies have reached.

Even so, two major Wall Street analysts still see more room to climb. UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri and Citi analyst Atif Malik both reiterated Buy ratings on the stock this week, pointing to memory market conditions that keep getting tighter.

Arcuri set a price target of $1,625, based on a forward price-to-earnings multiple of eight times his 2029 earnings forecast for the company. Malik, meanwhile, raised his target to $1,300 from $1,150, citing stronger DRAM pricing. Both targets sit well above the stock's current trading level — Arcuri's implies roughly 55% upside from Thursday's premarket price, and Malik's about 24%.

The next real test arrives on Sept. 30, when Micron reports fiscal fourth-quarter results, the closing quarter of a fiscal year that ends in late August. Wall Street will be watching for confirmation that memory pricing strength is actually showing up in the numbers.

Why Analysts See More Upside

The case rests on simple supply and demand. AI servers need huge amounts of memory, and chipmakers have been unable to keep up with demand from data center operators. Arcuri wrote that his latest checks show a widening gap between what buyers want and what is available.

He expects Micron to report fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $52.4 billion on Sept. 30, along with earnings per share of $32.50. Citi's Malik landed close to that number, forecasting $51 billion in fourth-quarter sales and EPS of $31.45, both a touch above the Street's consensus.

Looking further out, Malik expects fiscal first-quarter 2027 sales to hit $57 billion, with EPS climbing to $35.25.

Pricing trends are backing up those forecasts. Citi now expects blended DRAM prices to rise 20% sequentially in the fiscal fourth quarter, followed by another 13% increase the quarter after that. Malik expects both DRAM and NAND, the two main types of memory chips, to stay undersupplied for a while yet, though he sees price growth cooling over the next four quarters. He pegs the peak around the second quarter of 2027.

The Buyback Story

There is another piece to the puzzle that has drawn less attention. Micron currently cannot run large buybacks or pay special dividends because of terms attached to the Chips Act funding it took on in 2024. The funding was provided under the U.S. government's program to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Those restrictions are set to expire on Dec. 9 — roughly ten weeks after the fiscal fourth-quarter report.

Arcuri thinks Micron could kick off buybacks at around $20 billion per quarter, scaling up toward $50 billion per quarter by the end of fiscal 2027.

That combination of pricing power and buybacks is what gives Arcuri confidence even in a downside scenario. Memory has historically been among the most cyclical corners of the semiconductor industry, with pricing prone to steep swings in both directions. Even so, Arcuri argued that if open-market memory prices dropped 80% once the current AI-driven cycle winds down — a turn he pegs for the second half of 2028 — Micron would still post higher annualized earnings than it does today. Long-term pricing agreements and the eventual buyback program are doing the heavy lifting in that math.

Citi is also watching Micron's spending plans closely. The firm expects Micron to put roughly $50 billion toward capital expenditures in fiscal 2027, with more than $20 billion of that going toward equipment.

The fiscal fourth-quarter report will show whether the pricing strength Wall Street is expecting is materializing in Micron's results, and whether memory supply remains as tight as analysts' checks suggest. Investors will also be listening for any update on fiscal 2027 capital-spending plans and for early signals on when buybacks might begin once the Chips Act restrictions lapse in December.