Micron is growing revenue 350% year over year, and Brad points out that its gross margin has gone from 30% to 85% in a few years. In past downturns Apple was able to bargain that margin down below 0%. The stock still trades around five or six times earnings, because the market is still trying to figure out whether this is the greatest memory cycle ever or whether AI has changed the business for years to come.

You asked for a Micron deep dive in the comments, and Micron reports on September 30. The question the episode keeps coming back to is whether Micron is still a cyclical company. Shay thinks this time it kind of is different. Brad thinks Micron is still very much cyclical and is benefiting from the best cycle anyone has ever seen.

They get into what Micron used to be, why HBM is one of the most important pieces of the AI compute stack, the strategic customer agreements and their fixed pricing, why management sees supply staying tight beyond 2027, consumer AI and Meta's Muse, NVIDIA using less HBM per GPU, Apple asking to buy Chinese memory, when the bottleneck gets fixed, and the 14 week quarter that could make the next guide look light.

Brad says we are absolutely in a bubble, and he does not think Micron bulls are done making money in this cycle. He sees way more reason to be optimistic right now than pessimistic, but says bulls should be paranoid and keep looking for signs that the most fun times are over. Shay remains bullish because AI has structurally increased the value of memory inside the compute stack, and he asks why the market pays 19 times earnings for Dell and six times for Micron.

Tell the guys which stock deserves the next deep dive.

Watch the full episode with chapters on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wdoKsSEFMu8

New episodes every Monday on The Deep End.

Nothing in this episode is investment advice. Shay discusses his own portfolio, and he owns Micron as a trade. Brad's general view is bullish.