Micron Technology Stock Slides 16% Over 5 Straight Down Days

Micron Technology (MU) stock has fallen for 5 consecutive trading days, losing 16.0% over that stretch. That erased about $196.3 billion from the company's market value, which now stands at about $1.03 trillion. The stock closed at $914.13 on Wednesday, October 14, 24.7% below its 52-week high of $1,213.18 and 389.2% above its low of $186.85.

MU Versus The S&P 500

Returns for MU and the S&P 500 over the streak and the periods around it, all ending Wednesday, October 14 and including dividends:

Is This Move About Micron Technology Or The Market?

The market explains little of this: the S&P 500 lost 1.0% over the same 5 sessions, including dividends, against Micron Technology's -16.0%. 9 other S&P 500 stocks are currently on losing streaks of 5 days or longer. Over the past three months the stock is up 7.2%, a window that includes the streak; over the other 58 sessions of that window it was up 27.5%.

What The Numbers Say About The Slide

On the fundamentals, revenue grew 256.3% over the last twelve months, against a median of 17.9% for S&P 500 Information Technology stocks; its operating margin is 74.6%, versus a median of 21.6%; and the stock trades at 12.2 times trailing earnings against a median of 35.7. The selling is hard to square with the fundamentals: revenue growth above the median, margins above the median and a multiple below the median.

A slide like this raises an obvious follow-up: which marked-down stocks are actually worth buying? Our Buy the Dip screen runs that test every day, flagging beaten-down names whose fundamentals still hold up.

Prefer the theme to the single name? A semiconductor ETF like SOXX holds the whole group, not just this stock. It is still a concentrated bet on one theme, which is the gap the portfolio below is built to close.

Weakness In One Name Should Be Noise, Not News

For a diversified holder, a streak like this is a data point. For a concentrated one, it is a hole in the plan. The difference is never the stock; it is the portfolio built around it.

Building that portfolio is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does: roughly 30 businesses with the cash generation and balance-sheet strength to absorb a bad month, selected and rebalanced by rules. It has a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, the S&P MidCap 400, and the Russell 2000. Make the next streak, in either direction, someone else's drama.