Why Applied Materials And Lam Research Shares Are Diving

Shares of several semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies including Applied Materials Inc AMAT and Lam Research Corp LRCX are trading lower Wednesday in sympathy with Micron Technology Inc MU, which fell after the company announced it's reducing DRAM and NAND wafer starts and working toward additional capex cuts.

What Happened: Micron said it will reduce DRAM and NAND starts by approximately 20% compared to fiscal fourth quarter 2022. Furthermore, reductions will be made across all technology nodes where the company has meaningful output. Micron is also exploring other capex cut opportunities. 

As a result of the aforementioned changes, Micron now expects its bit supply growth for DRAM to be negative year-over-year. The company anticipates that bit supply growth will be in the single-digit percentage range for NAND.

"Micron is taking bold and aggressive steps to reduce bit supply growth to limit the size of our inventory. We will continue to monitor industry conditions and make further adjustments as needed," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO of Micron.

"Despite the near-term cyclical challenges, we remain confident in the secular demand drivers for our markets, and in the long term, expect memory and storage revenue growth to outpace that of the rest of the semiconductor industry." 

See Also: Nvidia Stock Could Be Swept Away On Q3 Earnings As Technical Storm Casts Shadow On Semiconductor Names

AMAT, LRCX Price Action: At publication time, Applied Materials was down 4.11% at $105.92 and Lam Research was down 6.55% at $458.61.

Photo: Ranjat M from Pixabay.