Two of Wall Street's favorite artificial intelligence trades have quietly landed in the Nasdaq 100's bargain bin, even after triple-digit gains this year.
Micron Technology, Inc. (MU) trades at 6.2 times forward earnings — what investors pay for each dollar of profit expected over the next 12 months — making it the second-cheapest stock in the index behind Strategy Inc.
The stock is down 23.3% month-to-date in July, on pace for its worst month since June 2022. It is still up 208% in 2026, after a run of nearly 2,000% from its 2025 lows to June highs.
SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) has fallen 35.7% this month and 24.7% this week alone, its worst weekly drop since March 2025. It sits at 8.1 times forward earnings and remains up 504% year-to-date.
Are These Chips Actually Cheap Here?
Memory is the most cyclical corner of semiconductors. A new fabrication plant takes two to three years and tens of billions of dollars to build, so supply always arrives late to its own party.
That is why a collapsing forward multiple has historically been a warning, not a discount. It falls when the market decides the earnings underneath it are about to fall further.
Micron has lived this movie. The stock peaked near $64 in May 2018 at roughly 4.5 times forward earnings, during the most profitable year in the company's history to that point. It then fell 57% by December as DRAM prices rolled over. Revenue dropped 23% the following year. The multiple was never cheap. It was pricing the peak.
The bull case is that this cycle breaks the pattern. High-bandwidth memory is contracted years out at locked prices and effectively sold out, and every prior bust started in the spot market. If AI demand is structural, these stocks deserve higher multiples, not lower.
Wall Street fell in love with these names on the way up. The question is whether a bargain multiple is enough to bring anyone back.
