The myth is that Friday’s Micron close has already retired the $61.5 billion fiscal first-quarter guide. It has not. Micron Technology closed Friday 6 November 2026 at $690.00 on Nasdaq’s official daily series. From that print, 37 sessions through 31 December 2026 put the bull at $917.01, the base at $584.69, and the bear at $433.14. The coverage still treats the September guide as the open question. The missing fact is narrower. No Micron filing after 30 September has changed the guide. The only current report since that print is a 5 November Form 8-K on a director’s retirement. Thursday’s drop, from a $795.23 close on 4 November to $656.39, is 17.46 percent and stays inside the volatility sample. It is not a new revenue number. The distribution uses the last 90 daily log-returns, a negative mean, and the sample standard deviation. It is not a broker target.
Two clocks sit under that close, and neither has rung. The fiscal 2026 Form 10-K says repurchases under the enlarged program will be made from 9 December 2026, and the authorization does not require a purchase. The 30 September earnings deck calls fiscal first-quarter gross margin the floor for fiscal 2027, because higher-cost inventory hits this quarter and later margins are expected to be higher. Reading $690.00 as a verdict on the guide treats a crash session as a new 8-K.
Key facts
- Close: $690.00 on Friday 6 November 2026, last completed bar in the Nasdaq historical file. Thursday closed at $656.39. Nasdaq info, fetched premarket on 9 November, lists NASDAQ-GS and a 52-week range of $192.59 to $1,255.00. A premarket last of $685.43 is not the spot.
- Path: bull $917.01, base $584.69, bear $433.14 over 37 sessions through 31 December 2026, or 32.90 percent above, 15.26 percent below, and 37.23 percent below $690.00. Mean log-return -0.00447593. Sigma 0.04932319. Source: FinanceFeeds calculation, 9 November 2026.
- Averages: the 20-day simple moving average is $879.01 and the 50-day is $961.64. Friday sits $189.01, or 21.50 percent, under the 20-day, and $271.64, or 28.25 percent, under the 50-day. Source: the same Nasdaq closes, 9 November 2026.
- Guide: fiscal first-quarter 2027 revenue of $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion, on the investor relations summary and the 30 September deck. Non-GAAP gross margin about 86.25 percent, operating expenses about $2.06 billion, diluted earnings per share $38.15 plus or minus $1.00, on about 1.15 billion diluted shares.
- Year just reported: fiscal 2026 revenue of $133.19 billion, against $37.38 billion, and fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $54.23 billion. Source: Micron, 30 September 2026.
- Customers: 26 strategic agreements, estimated at over 35 percent of revenue through 2030, with commitments of $32 billion. The Form 10-K records $12.75 billion of cash deposits in fiscal 2026. The deck names NVIDIA.
- Repurchases: on 8 October 2026 the board set the authorization at $35.16 billion, with buys from 9 December 2026. Fiscal 2026 buybacks were $650 million. The fourth-quarter slide shows none in the quarter.
- Board: Linnie M. Haynesworth notified Micron on 2 November 2026 that she will retire at the annual meeting expected on 14 January 2027. Source: Exhibit 99.1. It does not restate the guide.
What just happened, and why the obvious reading is wrong
The obvious reading is that memory cracked. The documents do not say that. Wednesday 4 November closed at $795.23. Thursday 5 November closed at $656.39, down $138.84, or 17.46 percent, on 77,872,750 shares, with a low of $650.00 and a high of $761.8105. Friday closed at $690.00, up $33.61, or 5.12 percent, on 44,887,890 shares, with a high of $724.80 and a low of $676.0006. The closes used here are Friday’s completed prints. Monday 9 November had not opened when the series was taken. A premarket last of $685.43 at 7:25 a.m. Eastern is not a close.
From the 20 October close of $896.07, Friday is down $206.07, or 23.00 percent. This path does not reuse that older spot. The stock is 43.14 percent under the 25 June 2026 close of $1,213.56, the highest close in the file, and 45.02 percent under that day’s $1,255.00 high. It is still 141.76 percent above the 31 December 2025 close of $285.41.
The five sessions through Friday ran from a high of $892.08 on 2 November to a low of $650.00 on 5 November. The close is $202.08 under that high and $40.00 above that low. The prior five sessions hit $906.54 on 30 October and the same $650.00 low. Friday is under both moving averages.
Thursday is the largest absolute log-return in the 90-session sample. The natural log of $656.39 divided by $795.23 is -0.19187626. Sigma on all 90 returns is 0.04932319. Dropping Thursday would leave 0.04535262. It was not dropped.
Who is exposed
Customers with cash already in the door come first. The 30 September earnings deck says Micron has signed 26 strategic customer agreements, estimated at over 35 percent of revenue through 2030. Three-quarters of that estimated revenue has a pricing framework, a majority with floors and ceilings. Commitments are $32 billion, mostly cash deposits. The 10-K says $12.75 billion arrived in fiscal 2026, nearly all scheduled to be repaid between 2029 and 2031.
NVIDIA is named. The deck says Micron is “proud to be working with NVIDIA on the industry’s first custom HBM4E implementation, NVHBM, to be adopted on next generation of GPUs and NVLink Fusion platforms.” Agreements cover the vast majority of calendar 2027 HBM bit supply, with significant price increases year over year. Data-center SSD revenue was nearly $10 billion in the quarter, more than 10 times a year earlier, and over two-thirds of NAND. Cloud Memory was $16.283 billion and Core Data Center $18.002 billion, together 63 percent of the quarter. Mobile and Client was $13.114 billion. Automotive and Embedded was $6.824 billion.
Holders sit on a different clock. The 10-K shows 1,131,423,212 shares on 2 October 2026, and the guide uses about 1.15 billion diluted shares. MU is in the Nasdaq-100 on NASDAQ-GS, so index vehicles hold the same tape. The new authorization is not yet a bid.
What the tape and the filings actually show
The table keeps a filing figure and a tape figure apart.
| Item | Figure | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| Friday close | $690.00 | Nasdaq file, 6 November 2026. Spot. |
| Thursday close | $656.39 | 5 November. Largest absolute log-return in the 90-session sample. |
| 20-day and 50-day averages | $879.01 and $961.64 | Friday is under both. |
| Fiscal 2026 revenue | $133.19 billion | 30 September 2026, versus $37.38 billion. |
| Fiscal Q4 revenue and non-GAAP EPS | $54.23 billion and $33.42 | Up 31 percent on the quarter and 379 percent on the year. Non-GAAP gross margin 87.0 percent. |
| Fiscal Q1 2027 guide | $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion | Unchanged in every later filing fetched here. |
| DRAM and NAND, fiscal Q4 | $39.8 billion and $14.1 billion | 73 percent and 26 percent. DRAM prices up in the high teens. NAND prices up about 30 percent. |
| DRAM and NAND, full year | $100.7 billion and $31.8 billion | 76 percent and 24 percent of fiscal 2026. |
| Repurchase authorization | $35.16 billion from 9 December 2026 | Form 10-K. Not a scheduled purchase. |
| 5 November 8-K | Director retirement | No revenue figure. Meeting expected 14 January 2027. |
Fiscal 2026 operating cash flow was $89.68 billion, against $17.53 billion a year earlier. Fourth-quarter operating cash flow was $43.97 billion. Adjusted free cash flow was $62.31 billion for the year. Net capital spending was $27.37 billion. Liquidity was $75.48 billion. Those are cash facts. This piece does not import a street target.
Shortage language for fiscal 2027 and 2028 is in the follow-up on the shortage. FinanceFeeds reported on 29 October 2026 that SK hynix told its briefing its DRAM and HBM volumes were effectively sold out through 2029, in the note on that session. A peer path is the Western Digital model. None of those pages is this distribution.
What Micron has said, and what it has declined to say
Sanjay Mehrotra, identified on the investor home page as chairman, president and chief executive officer, is quoted there: “Micron delivered record fiscal 2026 results, and we expect an even stronger fiscal 2027.” Strategic customer agreements, the same paragraph says, “provide added confidence in the durability of Micron’s financial performance.” The deck adds: “As strong as fiscal 2026 was, we expect fiscal 2027 to be even better.” Demand has strengthened since the prior call, and conditions should be much tighter in fiscal 2027 and 2028 than in 2026. Revenue was three and a half times last year’s record.
The outlook slides, after Mark Murphy, executive vice president and chief financial officer, say fiscal Q1 should be the floor for gross margins in fiscal 2027. Higher fiscal 2026 incentive pay was mostly absorbed into inventories, and selling those parts hits this quarter. The slides then expect higher gross margins, a more moderate pace of price increases, sequential revenue growth, and operating expenses up by about $2.5 billion. The tax rate is around 15.5 percent. Fiscal 2027 capital spending is planned above prior plans, mostly construction. The deck gives no new dollar total, and this article does not invent one.
The pages fetched here do not give a date for the fiscal first-quarter report. The results are not out. Outside calendars still point at mid-December and mark the day unconfirmed. This article does not treat 16 December as a Micron appointment. No saved filing after 30 September cuts, raises, or narrows the $61.5 billion guide.
The second named quote is about the board, not the guide. Lynn Dugle, lead independent director, said: “I want to thank Linnie for the important contributions she has made to the Micron board, particularly in the areas of cybersecurity and risk management.” She said Haynesworth’s chairing of the Security Committee strengthened oversight “during a period of increasing complexity and importance.” The exhibit says Mehrotra thanked her for more than five years of judgment on “some of the most important issues facing our company.” Haynesworth joined in February 2021 and leaves at the meeting expected on 14 January 2027. The board then has eight directors.
On 1 November, WOLF Financial posted remarks from Hamid Shojaee, founder of Axosoft: “There’s a 50% chance maybe AI becomes a disaster and Micron’s stock price goes in half from here, from 900 maybe down to 450. But there’s a 50% chance it goes from 900 to 2,700 over the course of the next year.” His $900 is not Friday’s $690.00. His $450 is not this bear. His $2,700 is not this bull.
The CHIPS repurchase constraint
The financing tension is in the 10-K. In December 2024 Micron signed Commerce agreements for up to $6.1 billion under the CHIPS Act, for a planned Boise fab and two planned fabs in Clay, New York. A June 2025 amendment added a second Boise fab and allocated part of that same $6.1 billion to it. The award date in the repurchase section is 9 December 2024.
On 8 October 2026 the board raised the authorization to $35.16 billion: about $2.16 billion left from the 2018 program, plus adjusted free cash flow for the quarter ended 3 September 2026, minus CHIPS grant proceeds for capital spending, minus dividends. The program does not expire and does not require a purchase. Buys under it start on 9 December 2026.
That date opens tighter rules. For two years after 9 December 2024, buys are limited to amounts in the agreements, mainly to offset employee-stock dilution. From 9 December 2026, the final three years add financial conditions, including free-cash-flow limits net of CHIPS grants for capital spending and net of dividends. Fiscal 2026 buybacks were $650 million for 2.5 million shares. The fourth quarter shows none. Treating Friday’s close as if that bid were live is early by more than a month. ID1 wafer output in mid-calendar 2027, ID2 in late calendar 2028, Singapore HBM packaging in early calendar 2027, and Japan DRAM output in late calendar 2028 are not inputs to N.
Bull, base, and bear
The title numbers are this distribution. They are not the $61.5 billion guide, not the $32 billion of commitments, and not Shojaee’s $450 and $2,700. A broker target is a separate number. None is copied into the headline.
The sample is the last 90 daily log-returns, the natural log of each close divided by the prior close, from the session after 1 July 2026 through 6 November. Mu is -0.00447593. Sigma, the sample standard deviation on n minus 1, is 0.04932319. N is 37.
Base is $690.00 times the exponential of N times mu. The exponent is -0.16560938 and the raw price is $584.690248, which rounds half up to $584.69, $105.31 or 15.26 percent under the close. Bull adds 1.5 times sigma times the square root of N. The exponent is 0.28442251 and the raw price is $917.006084, which rounds half up to $917.01, $227.01 or 32.90 percent above the close. The bull clears the spot, so the negative drift stays in. Stripping the drift would print $1,082.17, and that sensitivity is not the bull. Bear subtracts one times sigma times the square root of N. The exponent is -0.46563064 and the raw price is $433.139980, which rounds half up to $433.14, $256.86 or 37.23 percent under the close.
The year-end bull is not within $1 of $1,464.63, $1,725.58, $1,440, $1,540, $1,200, $985, $1,100, or $1,500. Ten sessions through 20 November give $833.72, $659.80, and $564.51. Fifteen sessions through 30 November give $859.28, $645.20, and $533.00. Twenty sessions through 7 December give $878.35, $630.92, and $506.03. None collides, so N stays 37 through 31 December 2026. Early closes on 27 November and 24 December count. Only 26 November and 25 December are skipped.
| Case | Price | Versus the $690.00 spot | What has to be true |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bull | $917.01 | Up $227.01, or 32.90 percent | Thirty-seven sessions finish 1.5 standard deviations above the negative drift. The guide is not cut, and fiscal Q1 margin still reads as a floor. A 9 December purchase is allowed, not required. |
| Base | $584.69 | Down $105.31, or 15.26 percent | The mean log-return persists for 37 sessions and nothing else is added. A guide that is merely met can still land here. |
| Bear | $433.14 | Down $256.86, or 37.23 percent | The same drift minus one standard deviation, with Thursday left in the sample. The formula does not need a guide cut. |
What happens next
First, 9 December 2026. The 10-K says repurchases under the enlarged program start that day, under free-cash-flow limits for the final three CHIPS years. A purchase would be a new bid. No purchase would match the 10-K: the figure is an authorization. Neither outcome rewrites the $61.5 billion guide.
Second, the fiscal first-quarter report, on a date the company has not posted. Revenue of $60.0 billion to $63.0 billion is the guide of $61.5 billion plus or minus $1.5 billion. A non-GAAP gross margin near 86.25 percent would match the guide and the floor language, after a quarter that printed 87.0 percent. Revenue under $60.0 billion, or a margin slide the company does not tie to inventoried compensation, would mean the 30 September language failed.
Third, the 31 December 2026 close, 37 sessions from Friday. The bull of $917.01 is the drift plus 1.5 standard deviations. The base of $584.69 is the drift alone. The bear of $433.14 is the drift minus one standard deviation. Singapore HBM packaging in early calendar 2027 is outside this horizon.
This is not financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Micron stock prediction through 31 December 2026?
The bull is $917.01 and the bear is $433.14. The base, which is not in the headline, is $584.69. All three use Friday 6 November 2026’s $690.00 Nasdaq close, the last 90 daily log-returns, and 37 sessions. Mu is -0.00447593 and sigma is 0.04932319. These prices are a distribution, not a broker target and not the revenue guide.
Why is this bull under the older bulls above $1,400?
Those older bulls used earlier closes and different session counts. This one uses the $690.00 close and 37 sessions, and it keeps a negative drift because the result still sits above the spot. Stripping the drift would print $1,082.17, which is not the bull. The year-end pair does not collide, so the horizon is not shortened.
Did Micron cut the $61.5 billion guide after 30 September?
No filing saved for this article cuts it, raises it, or narrows it. The 30 September materials guide fiscal first-quarter 2027 revenue at $61.5 billion, plus or minus $1.5 billion. The 5 November Form 8-K is a director’s retirement. It does not restate revenue, margin, or earnings. The investor pages fetched on 9 November do not post a replacement guide.
What has to be true for the bear case of $433.14?
The bear is the recent drift minus one standard deviation over 37 sessions. It is $256.86, or 37.23 percent, under the $690.00 close. It fits a tape that keeps realizing moves already inside sigma, including Thursday 5 November, which stays in the sample. The formula can reach $433.14 without a cut to the revenue guide.
When can Micron repurchase stock under the new authorization?
The fiscal 2026 Form 10-K says any repurchases under the program will be made from 9 December 2026, under the CHIPS Act funding agreements. The authorization is $35.16 billion and it does not require a purchase. From that date the final three years apply, including free-cash-flow limits. Fiscal 2026 buybacks were $650 million, and the fourth quarter shows none.
Is 16 December the earnings date?
This article does not treat 16 December 2026 as a company appointment. The investor pages fetched for this piece do not list a fiscal first-quarter report, and the report is not out. Outside calendars still point at mid-December and mark the day unconfirmed. When Micron reports, the test is the $61.5 billion guide and whether gross margin behaves as the floor the deck described.