MU is a buy due to record >80% operating margins, surging data center revenues, and projected supply shortages extending into 2028.

During the eight years I spent evaluating companies' financial statements full-time, I had never seen a company report an operating profit margin above 80% until Micron did so about three months ago.

Yesterday, Micron again announced operating profit margins exceeding 80%. According to the management team's projections for the next quarter, this could be the third consecutive quarter.

So, eight years, hundreds of companies, thousands of financial reports, and I've never seen results this strong.

Now, considering these projections, you might wonder in surprise: "Well, Barr, how come the stock price rose by only about half a percent the day after Micron announced those results?"

That's true, but if you look at it, the stock has already risen by more than 272% since the beginning of 2026.

So, these impressive results were already anticipated by participants in the stock market, and I had been expecting this for years when I upgraded Micron to a buy opportunity and started talking about how exciting this investment opportunity was.

Micron has exceeded its expectations across all of its critical financial metrics, including revenue, gross profit margin, and earnings per share. Total revenues reached three and a half times last year's record figure, with data center revenues nearly four times higher.

Now, the bulk of this revenue increase comes from higher average selling prices. With the sector remaining constrained in terms of supply, this means that demand exceeds supply.

Suppliers of this technology can charge very high prices, and customers are willing to pay.

Micron has significantly increased the prices of its products by triple, and even triple, percentages over the past eighteen months or so.

To make this announcement even better, the management team said: "As strong as 2026 was, we expect 2027 to be even better." So, good times are expected to continue for Micron and Micron stock investors.

Congratulations to Micron shareholders, whose stock rose by approximately 300% in 2026. However, things were not all rosy in this quarterly financial update. There was a lot to admire, don't get me wrong.

However, there were also some slightly worrying elements, such as all the additional expenses and costs that Micron is expecting.

The company increased its incentive compensation for 2026 for every member of its global team. This added approximately $1 billion in costs to total operating expenses.

In addition, management later revealed in this report that it expects to spend much larger amounts on capital expenditures in the next fiscal year. This comes in response to increased demand that the management team expects to extend beyond 2026 and 2027 and into 2028.

Over the past six quarters, Micron has revealed strong forecasts for the next quarter and strong estimates for the next fiscal year. Then they come back to us after three months and say to us: "Do you know what?"

"Demand is much better than we expected." And they did it again here. "Industry demand has strengthened since our last earnings call."

They said this in almost every quarter as far as I can remember, going back at least six quarters, and possibly two whole years. Demand has been extremely strong and continues to improve.

They expect that supply and demand conditions for memory and storage will be tighter next year than this year, and in 2028 than in 2026.

So, if you thought the industry was experiencing supply constraints in 2026, it will be even tighter in 2027 and 2028. Thus, we are now starting to see estimates extending all the way to 2028.

We already knew that Micron's 2027 production was completely sold out, and that the industry had run out of all the components. And now, we are beginning to see that 2028 is also starting to run out.

So, at least according to what Micron says, and I've seen hints from other companies that 2028 looks strong too, it looks like a promising year.

This is important because this is the biggest concern for investors in artificial intelligence and its stocks. We have witnessed this great boom, and many fear a major collapse, that the bubble will burst, and that revenues, profits, and cash flows will collapse.

So, this gives us more room, an additional year in which demand continues to exceed supply.

In addition to the usual industry dynamics with existing technology, Micron is innovating even more to increase demand, isn't it? If Micron can innovate and deliver better, higher-value products to customers, that in itself can stimulate demand.

Therefore, the demand for the development of the next generation of DRAM and NAND technologies—that is, memory and storage—is progressing well, and they are on track to begin mass production in the second half of 2027.

Micron has a history of effective innovation over many years. They have been doing this for a long time. They are very good at what they do. They have vertical integration because they own the manufacturing facilities, and they also own the research and development operations.

Everything is done internally, and they have effectively assembled these elements over many years, and through many cycles of semiconductors.

They innovate, working to develop better technology and provide more supplies. They are focusing on their global manufacturing expansions to help meet customer demand and growth through the end of this decade and beyond.

They're already looking ahead to 2030. They've already started talking about 2031. Some customers are already trying to secure supplies well into 2031.

They have manufacturing operations expected to be ready in New York by 2030. They'll have new chip production ready in Idaho by 2027. And more are coming in 2028.

In the fourth fiscal quarter, they held a groundbreaking ceremony for their DRAM facility in Japan, with initial production expected to start in 2028. And more are coming in Taiwan in 2027 and in Singapore in 2027.

So, they have several new manufacturing facilities slated to come online within the next two years, and more are coming in 2030. Even accounting for all this new supply, Micron says we can't even determine when the industry will reach equilibrium or when we'll be in a state of balance in terms of having enough supply to meet demand.

Even with all this new supply they are putting forward, they still expect to face supply constraints, and they don't even know when the situation will turn into a surplus of supply that exceeds demand.