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Credit Suisse says buy Micron shares because they're 'extremely cheap'

Key Points
  • Credit Suisse reiterates its outperform rating for Micron shares, citing the company's attractive valuation.
  • “Unless the world begins to create less data and/or data becomes less valuable – memory will continue to grow in importance relative to compute architectures,” the firm's analyst John Pitzer says.
A booth of Micron Technology at an industrial fair in Frankfurt, Germany.
Kai Pfaffenbach | Reuters

Credit Suisse believes the recent dip in Micron shares is a good buying opportunity.

The firm reiterated its outperform rating for Micron shares, citing the company's attractive valuation.

"While it's often futile to fight negative momentum — we feel very comfortable leaning [into Micron's stock]," analyst John Pitzer said in a note to clients Thursday. The company's valuation is "extremely cheap."

Micron shares rallied 1.6 percent Friday.

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Pitzer reaffirmed his $90 price target for Micron shares, representing 106 percent upside to Thursday's close.

The analyst said the chipmaker trades at 1.7 times its forward enterprise value to sales, which is below its historical average and down from the 2.6 times peak in 2016. He also predicts demand for server memory chips will grow by 35 percent to 40 percent annually.

"Unless the world begins to create less data and/or data becomes less valuable — memory will continue to grow in importance relative to compute architectures," he said.

Hedge-fund manager David Tepper told CNBC on Thursday he's still "very, very long" Micron shares.

The company's stock is under pressure this month due to heightened concerns about slowing memory chip demand. Micron shares are down 17 percent month to date through Thursday.

Last week Morgan Stanley and an executive at KLA-Tencor said the memory chip market is deteriorating versus expectations, which drove a big drop in the semiconductor sector's shares.

Micron is slated to report its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings results on Sept. 20.

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