Shares of Micron Technology (MU +1.72%) have climbed about 10-fold from their 2024 closing price of about $84. The memory maker's stock jumped 239% in 2025, and as I write it's more than tripled again this year, to roughly $903.

If the stock ends 2026 over about $571, it'll be just the second time Micron has put up back-to-back triple-digit years. The first was 1993 and 1994, when shares rose 146% and 137%. (These and the other annual numbers here are calendar-year price returns from year-end closes, without dividends.)

Micron's own history doesn't rule out more gains. But after looking at what followed its past booms, I think investors should expect far less from here.

The stock tends to fall before the profits do

After its 1993-94 run, Micron stock climbed another 80% in 1995. The shares peaked on Sept. 11, 1995, though, and ended the year around 58% off that high before sliding another 26% in 1996.

But the business hadn't peaked when the stock did. Micron made $328.5 million in its first fiscal quarter of 1996 (roughly September to November 1995), more than in any earlier quarter.

Then its memory chip prices slid faster than the company could lower its costs, and net income shrank to $188 million, then $58 million, then $19 million in the next three quarters.

The next two booms followed a similar pattern. Micron stock climbed 300% in 2009 and lost 24% in 2010. Yet fiscal 2010 (which ended in early September 2010) saw net income of $1.85 billion, a swing from a $1.9 billion loss a year earlier. The stock was looking ahead. In fiscal 2011, Micron's average DRAM selling prices slid 39%, and earnings sank around 91% to $167 million.

After a 243% gain in 2013, the shares climbed another 61% in 2014 and then fell 60% in 2015. Again, full-year profits still looked strong. Fiscal 2015 net income of $2.9 billion was just a bit under fiscal 2014's $3.0 billion.

By fiscal 2016, with DRAM prices off 35%, Micron had a $276 million loss.

In short, Micron's stock has tended to fall while its full-year profits still looked strong -- and before those profits dropped.

Has the turn already started?

The stock might already be repeating this pattern. Micron's shares hit a closing high of $1,213.56 in late June and now sit about 26% below it.

Yet Micron's earnings have kept climbing since then. In fiscal 2026, which ended Sept. 3, revenue grew to $133.2 billion, over 3.5 times the prior year's total. The company made $74.33 a share under generally accepted accounting principles, up almost tenfold from $7.59 in fiscal 2025.

But the rate of this growth is slowing. On a non-GAAP (adjusted) basis, Micron's per-share profit jumped 106% from fiscal Q2 to fiscal Q3, then rose 33% to $33.42 in fiscal Q4. Management's guidance of around $38.15 for fiscal Q1 2027 implies growth of about 14%. Pricing shows the same slowdown. Micron's DRAM prices rose by a percentage in the low 60s from the prior quarter in fiscal Q3, but only by a high-teens percentage in fiscal Q4.

Still, there's a key difference from past cycles. In every earlier bust, memory prices dropped. Now they're still rising, just slower.

"[W]e do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance," CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in prepared remarks for the company's fiscal Q4 earnings call.

Of course, slowing price gains are arguably how a turn starts.

MU Micron Technology

Investors are already paying for a downturn

At roughly $903, Micron's price-to-earnings ratio is about 12 on fiscal 2026 results. Against analysts' fiscal 2027 adjusted profit estimates, the shares trade at only about 5 times earnings.

A price-to-earnings ratio this low for a tech business growing this fast suggests the market doesn't expect those profits to last. (I've written before about how quickly memory makers' peak margins fell in past cycles.)

Still, I wouldn't bet on a repeat of 2025 or 2026. In the two years after its 2009 and 2013 booms, the stock lost about 40% and 35%. And even after 1994, investors had to ride out a 58% fall in late 1995.

Can Micron stock keep climbing from here? It can, especially if memory prices keep rising into 2027, and I think the shares are worth a look for long-term investors at this price. I'd just size a position with the next downturn in mind, because Micron's stock has usually started falling well before its profits do.