Newsletter · · Ashutosh Agarwal

Micron Jumps 15 Percent and Apple Raises Device Prices on the Memory Shortage - The AI Capex Tracker - Week of June 26, 2026

AI capex newsletter for the week of June 26, 2026. Micron's verdict-day +15% executed the recipients-over-spenders rotation in a single session, while Apple's $100 to $300 device price hikes turned the memory crunch into a consumer tax and SK Hynix set a July 10 $30B Nasdaq listing.

The AI Capex Tracker

Week of June 26, 2026: Micron Jumps 15 Percent and Apple Raises Device Prices on the Memory Shortage

Issue: Friday, June 26, 2026

TL;DR

  • Yesterday's "buy the recipients" call paid off in one session. Micron closed +15%, best day in a month, pulling SanDisk +22% and the wafer-fab names (LAM, Applied, KLA all +7%+) up, while the MAG7 became the funding source and shed roughly an ExxonMobil of cap on the day. The rotation is now the tape, not a thesis. (Closing Bell, Jun 25)
  • The memory crunch reached the consumer. Apple raised Mac/iPad prices $100 to $300 (its first pass-through of AI memory costs) and fell ~5%, worst session since April last year. Memory is up 4x in three quarters; the Street now models an iPhone 18 Pro ~$280 higher in September. Third wave of inflation. (Squawk on the Street, Jun 25)
  • SK Hynix set the date: July 10 on the Nasdaq, raising ~$30B, potentially the largest US listing/ADR ever, and the next test of whether there's enough capital to feed the memory complex without draining Micron and Seagate. (Squawk Box Europe Express, Jun 25)

What's new

Yesterday I said own the recipients, not the spenders. Thursday proved it, hard.

1. Micron's verdict day: +15%, and the cycle bit changed. Squawk on the Street, Jun 25, Santoli & Partsinevelos (CNBC). Net income doubled QoQ, 84.9% gross margin ("better than even NVIDIA's at their top"), $18B free cash flow; Citi went to $1,400, D.A. Davidson to $2,000. The structural tell: 16 strategic customer agreements, 14 locking ~$100B of minimum guaranteed revenue through 2030, with a price floor holding margin above today's peak through 2029 (Squawk Pod, Jun 25). Santoli's caveat: "normally capitalism doesn't say you guys get 85% margins indefinitely."

2. The contracts are take-or-pay, a first for memory. Squawk Box Europe Express, Jun 25, Sedgwick (CNBC Int'l).

"The company has inked five-year term take-or-pay agreements… the industry hasn't done this before."

Customers are on the hook even if demand changes, they pay to take delivery, not Micron. That's what breaks the boom-bust frame. Revenue guide: ~$50B this period, up from $11B a year ago, with no line of sight to supply catching demand even as it improves "gradually in 2028."

3. Apple blinks, memory becomes a tax on devices. Squawk on the Street, Jun 25, Sigalos (CNBC). Apple raised Mac/iPad prices $100 to $300 (even the new MacBook Neo), said it "held out as long as it could." With memory up 4x and Apple's margin near 50%, there's only so much it can eat. Microsoft hiked Xbox; Dell and HPE are in the same squeeze. Mac/iPad are ~14% of revenue, Apple is testing pricing power before the iPhone, where the 18 Pro is modeled +$280. Deutsche Bank: "a tax on devices."

4. The bear got specific: an earnings bubble, not a valuation bubble. NAB Morning Call, Jun 26, Peter Berezin, Chief Global Strategist, BCA Research. Hyperscalers reach ~$2.5T of AI assets by 2030; at ~20% depreciation that's ~$500B/yr, more than their combined earnings last year. And the profit is partly accounting: "When NVIDIA sells a chip, it books a profit… If Meta or Microsoft buys it, it's not an expense, it's CapEx. No new cash is created, but profits still go up." His call: data centers end up like railroads, transformative, but the funders lose money, and "a lot of these stocks are going to be down 70%, 80%, 90%." Timing: "seventh or eighth inning."

5. Power's real problem isn't megawatts, it's milliseconds. The QTS Experience, Jun 25, Luke Saladyga, CTO Volta Grid (ex-Oracle nuclear lead). AI workloads create millisecond load transients, and "the only thing worse than a gas turbine at dealing with transients is a nuclear reactor with a steam generator." Nuclear fixes baseload, not the swings, forcing behind-the-meter generation plus batteries/UPS. Site selection has flipped from "geography and utility" to "generation source and ability to handle transients."

The debate

Bull, recipients are printing, and demand is contracted. Micron beat into a +15% day, signed first-ever take-or-pay five-year deals, locked ~$100B through 2030, pushed the shortage past 2027, all while throwing off $18B quarterly FCF. Hock Tan's "insatiable demand… not a bubble" was reprised across desks. The picks-and-shovels names are where the earnings actually show up. (Squawk on the Street, Jun 25)

Bear, it self-funds until it doesn't. Berezin's $500B depreciation wall exceeds combined earnings; the buyer-capex/seller-profit asymmetry is "double dipping"; and a Nomura chart shows hyperscaler free cash flow falling toward zero even as the S&P grinds higher, "where is this money coming from?" The MAG7-plus-Broadcom-plus-Oracle complex erased ~$2.7T of value in June (MSFT -$558B, AMZN -$385B, GOOGL -$361B, AVGO -$303B). (TraderMerlin, Jun 25)

Sell signals to watch: July 10 SK Hynix print draining capital from the rest of the complex; any hyperscaler trimming 2-year capex at July earnings; Apple's iPhone pricing triggering demand destruction; "designed-around-HBM" cheaper-memory chips (Qualcomm) capping demand; hyperscaler FCF confirmed negative at July prints.

Stocks in play

NVDA. Bull: the gross-margin benchmark Micron is measured against, AI cycle re-validated. Bear: a net decliner on a +15% Micron day, "back at a price it first reached in October of last year," with Berezin flagging the moat "eroding" as Google/Amazon/AMD/Broadcom field their own silicon. Next: TSMC earnings mid-July; Q2 print August. (Closing Bell, Jun 25)

AVGO. Bull: Hock Tan's "insatiable demand from our six customers… not a bubble" was the line of the day. Bear: down with the complex, ~$303B of cap shed in June. Next: custom-silicon ramp milestones. (Squawk on the Street, Jun 25)

AMD. Largely quiet on the tape, surfaced only as a custom-silicon name Berezin says is pressuring Nvidia. Next: AMD Advancing AI Day, July 2026. (NAB Morning Call, Jun 26)

MSFT. Bull: none fresh. Bear: the archetypal spender and the day's funding source, -$558B in June (~-20% on the month), and hiked Xbox prices into the same crunch. Next: FY26 Q4 capex at July earnings. (TraderMerlin, Jun 25)

GOOGL. Bull: TPU remains the validated custom-silicon template. Bear: a spender footing the bill, -$361B in June. Next: July capex guide. (NAB Morning Call, Jun 26)

AMZN. Bull: Broadcom "signed and will soon be delivering compute for AWS" (Tan); Trainium is the in-house template. Bear: a spender, -$385B in June, flagged as next to tap debt. Next: July earnings. (Squawk Box Europe Express, Jun 25)

META. Bull: named Qualcomm's first data-center-CPU customer, a small but real second-sourcing of compute. Bear: a net decliner, firmly a spender. Next: July earnings. (Squawk Pod, Jun 25)

Read-throughs

  • Memory / HBM, green light, but capital supply is the new variable. SK Hynix's July 10 ~$30B Nasdaq ADR could be the largest US listing ever; bull read is a re-rate for the group, bear read is it siphons money from Micron and Seagate. Korean names ripped (KOSPI +6%) on the listing and a Samsung buyback. Own the recipients, watch July 10 for the funding test. (Squawk Box Europe Express, Jun 25)
  • Optics, Lumentum and Coherent are the 2028 call. Jay Goldberg (Seaport): "2028, a massive, massive data center optical buildup… orders of magnitude increase in content," but "optical always disappoints on timing." Entry is the timing-driven dip, not the print. (Closing Bell, Jun 25)
  • Power / thermal (VRT, ETN), behind-the-meter plus storage, transients as the moat. Saladyga's thesis underwrites batteries/UPS on top of generation. No fresh GE Vernova print, but underwrite Vertiv/Eaton off the ride-through and storage build. Separately, the US switched on a new nuclear reactor at Idaho National Laboratory, first in five decades, a baseload signal, not a transient fix. (The QTS Experience, Jun 25)
  • Chipflation, the new macro overlay. Apple, Microsoft, Dell, HPE all raising prices: a "third wave" after tariffs and oil, "impervious to short-term interest rates." Watch the read-through to PCE and the Fed. (Squawk on the Street, Jun 25)

What changed vs last issue

Last issue (Jun 25, "Micron beat the bull case. Buy the recipients.") made the recipients-over-spenders call off the after-hours print. In one session the market executed it:

  • The trade worked. Micron +15%, SanDisk +22%, WFE +7%+; MAG7 became the funding source and shed ~$2.7T in June. The rotation is now the dominant tape.
  • SK Hynix got a date and size: July 10, ~$30B Nasdaq ADR, firmer than last issue's "weighing a ~$29B IPO," now a concrete near-term liquidity event.
  • The contracts got named: take-or-pay, five-year, first-ever for memory; ~$100B guaranteed through 2030. Yesterday's "self-funds" point now has a structure under it.
  • New second-order risk, chipflation. The crunch is visibly taxing Apple/Microsoft/Dell and feeding PCE, not in yesterday's note.
  • The bear sharpened from yesterday's $2T-revenue-gap to Berezin's $500B-by-2030 depreciation wall and the "double-dipping" earnings-bubble framing, corroborated by Nomura's hyperscaler-FCF-toward-zero chart.
  • Aggregate capex held at "$700B+ this year, over $1T next" (cited ~$741 to 750B). No fresh GE Vernova or ERCOT/SB6 queue print this cycle.