Micron Q4: $50 Billion Guide, Growth Closer to 12%
Micron’s Q4 revenue guide is $50 billion. The quarter includes an extra week, so sequential growth is closer to 12 percent than the 21 percent a raw comparison suggests. The shares are already up 276 percent year to date and trade at 14.3 times forward earnings. That calendar detail is the number worth reading twice.
An extra week changes the growth rate
A standard quarter is about thirteen weeks. One more week lifts reported revenue before any change in price or units per week. Anyone who treats $50 billion as a clean run rate will overstate the business. The comparison that strips the extra week lands near 12 percent sequential growth.
Twelve percent is still a fast quarter for a memory company. Twenty one percent is the figure that will travel, and it flatters a stock that has already climbed 276 percent this year. The gap is a longer reporting window. Models that skip it will look precise for one print and sloppy on the next, when the extra week falls out of the base.
Half of DRAM and NAND sits under contract
The guide is the near term print. The contract book is the longer fact. Sixteen contracts lock in $100 billion of revenue through 2030. That contracted slice covers about half of DRAM volume and about half of NAND volume. Margins on the contracted book sit above any prior cycle peak, including in a case where memory prices fall.
Take or pay terms are plain. The buyer pays for the committed volume inside the window. In the old memory pattern a price drop hit the entire book at the spot market. Here, half the volume still floats with price. The other half has a floor under it.
A floor on half the book can separate a weak quarter from a broken one. The cycle remains. DRAM and NAND prices can still drop, and the uncovered half will feel that drop in full. A published view ties the shortage case to 2027. That date is a forecast. The checkable piece today is the coverage ratio, about half of each major product line.
The multiple looks ordinary only on a screen
MU at 14.3 times forward earnings sits near a normal multiple for a fast sequential growth rate. The path there was a 276 percent year to date move, so earnings estimates did a lot of the work. The multiple looks calm because the earnings denominator got bigger.
One published target is $1,500 a share. That figure needs the contract book, supply that stays tight, and margins that remain above the old peak. It pays no coupon. Supply can stay tight while the sixteen contracts run. It can also ease if customers add a second source, if new capacity arrives faster than the 2027 shortage case allows, or if the uncontracted half of DRAM and NAND reprices lower.
A multiple under 15 after a move like this still carries a full price. The market has already capitalized a large share of the earnings in the guide. If the extra week sits inside those earnings, 14.3 times is less forgiving than the raw multiple suggests.
Nebius raises capital where Micron sells wafers
The same AI build shows up in a very different set of accounts at Nebius, ticker NBIS. Four published views split. Two say buy. One says strong buy. One says sell.
The buy case rests on revenue growth, firm data center pricing, and customer contracts. The sell case rests on the cost of the buildings, shareholder dilution, debt, depreciation assumptions, and weak visibility on pricing power once current contracts roll. A high valuation hangs over that split. Buyers say guidance and demand absorb the new shares. The sell view rejects that.
The split is about how the build gets funded. NBIS funds it by issuing shares and by borrowing. New shares shrink the claim of everyone already on the register. Until the life of that gear is tested, the stock is a wager on pricing power. CoreWeave and IREN sit in the same argument, heavy assets and fresh capital. Micron is selling a scarce component into that spend under contract.
What this means for income investors
The $100 billion is revenue at Micron. A distribution is a separate decision. Contract cover on about half of DRAM and NAND can steady Micron’s margins. Yield is a different question. These figures do not promise that cash to shareholders.
Use 12 percent, not 21 percent, when the Q4 guide enters a model. The extra week is inside the $50 billion. A model that forgets it will praise the wrong growth rate and then look for a slowdown that was partly a calendar.
Read 14.3 times forward earnings as a growth multiple. The shares are up 276 percent year to date. A $1,500 target works only if margins stay above the prior peak and the contracts hold. That is a growth outcome. Income accounts that need cash this year get nothing extra from the multiple alone.
Keep NBIS, and names with the same dilution and debt profile, out of the yield sleeve. A higher price from fresh capital leaves the payout unchanged. Funds that hold both the memory supplier and the data center builders will show the move in net asset value long before any of it reaches a distribution. The contract book makes this memory cycle sturdier than the last one. It is still a cycle. The figure to watch after this print is the weekly revenue rate once the extra week is gone.