Micron Technology (MU)

(A Top Pick August 28/17 - Up 12%.) Covered call selling JAN 30 calls. They were called away. More volatility here.

Semi-conductors are seeing a buying signal lately. He thinks tech will continue to be a leader in this inflationary area and likes the earning growth of this company. This is one of the companies than controls market share in the space.

This is a cyclical stock. Over half of its business goes to China. It is at peak earnings. His model price is $196.21, which is a 250% upside, but this stock never trades on its earnings because it is cyclical. He expects the stock to trade over and under his EBB+3 price level which, a year from now, is $82, still much higher than its current price around $60. The stock pays no dividend.

It's done well as it continues to trend higher. It's been a great name. News about them being banned from China worries investors, but in this space this is one of the best stocks. Put a stop loss on it. He likes this.

He bought it back in 2016. When he started researching assisted driving, this company came on his radar. It is a volatile stock, but the valuation is fair with the Price Earnings to Growth ratio running at a cheap 0.22. His target price is $80 in one year. It is a leader in the NAN and DRAM chip markets.

It has been volatile over the years. It's currently on an up cycle which should continue since there's more demand for storage and the Cloud. He doesn't know MU well.

All the tech stocks look expensive for value investors. This has good growth ahead with demand from phones and other devices. He likes semiconductor companies and any portfolio should have some exposure to this space.

He thinks they are ideally positioned for the movement to cloud based storage. Estimates are that global cloud storage has increased by 90% over the past 18 months. They put up a good earnings surprise and are doing well.

Lam or Micron? Semi-conductors have been a good neighbourhood to be in. LAM is much more focused on equipment that makes semis while Micron is focussed on memory chips. With the proliferation of handsets, the demand for memory has been shooting through the roof, so Micron is benefitting big. He prefers Micron, though it's more cyclical than other stocks. Given consolidation in this space, the pricing power has gotten better. It trades at 6x PE like a cyclical. Great job of growing its business.

The chip space has come to life in recent years. Not too familiar with MU but all these names are up.

Stock had a boast last week with a strong earnings report. A solid stock and he likes this space. Big data has a promising future--AI demands more, better chips from makers like this. But he prefers the companies that make the equipment that produce these semi-conducting chips, like Applied Materials, AMAT. Nothing against MU though.

There is no justice in the stock market. He doesn’t think there is a lot of downside. Well-run company.

A technology stock and there are very few that don’t have momentum, and very few that are cheap. This one is certainly not cheap but does have a lot of momentum. He would be a little cautious on this right now. (See Top Picks.)

A great company. They are selling memory storage. That market, over the last few years, has become less fragmented and more controlled so pricing has been better. There are lots of handsets being built.

US growth recommendations?What he observes in US growth stocks is that they are long in the cycle, and a lot of them are very, very expensive on a P/B basis. When he looks at their intrinsic value is, it is very hard for him to find anything he would be interested in. You could try Micron Technologies (MU-Q) which is a reasonably priced growth stock and has upside potential.