--- title: "China, Share Buybacks, US 1 List: Why Bank of America Is Pounding the Table on Micron Stock" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/293347863.md" description: "Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya maintains a Buy rating on Micron with a $1,550 price target, citing strong bullish sentiment. Key drivers include the expiration of CHIPS Act buyback restrictions in 2026, which could enable significant share repurchases given projected free cash flow. Arya dismisses competitive threats from Chinese memory makers and open-source AI models, viewing them as limited risks to high-bandwidth memory demand. Micron was also added to BofA's US 1 List, reflecting its status as a top investment idea." datetime: "2026-07-21T13:11:01.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/293347863.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/293347863.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/293347863.md) --- # China, Share Buybacks, US 1 List: Why Bank of America Is Pounding the Table on Micron Stock After undergoing a steep selloff, **Micron (NASDAQ:MU)** appears to be regaining its footing. The stock advanced on Monday and looks poised to extend those gains in Tuesday’s trading. ### Claim 55% Off TipRanks - Unlock powerful investing tools with TipRanks Premium to make smarter, more confident investment decisions - Subscribe to TipRanks Smart Investor Newsletter, and discover new investing opportunities with data-backed stock picks The recent weakness reflected several factors, including a broader tech-sector selloff, concerns that AI infrastructure spending could begin to cool, and fears that Chinese memory-chip manufacturers such as CXMT could intensify competitive pressure. The selloff now appears to have eased, and with big tech about to report Q2 earnings, we will soon get a clearer picture regarding the second concern. As for the competitive threat from China, BofA analyst Vivek Arya, who ranks among the top 2% of analysts on Wall Street, does not view CXMT as a significant threat. Although the China-based company is “aggressively expanding” its production capacity, reaching the low-teens percentage range of global wafer capacity, Arya sees “limited competition” in AI memory. CXMT mainly caters to the underserved consumer and commodity DRAM markets rather than HBM3E and HBM4. It also remains uncertain whether U.S. original equipment manufacturers will receive government approval to source from CXMT in the near term. Meanwhile, Arya also thinks that Chinese open LLMs are “no threat to memory demand.” In fact, the latest wave of open-source model releases, including China’s Kimi K3, launched on July 16, reinforces the analyst’s “bullish thesis” on memory and Micron. Arya argues that the aggressive pricing of Chinese open-model APIs – which can be up to 5–350 times cheaper than Western alternatives – reflects business-model decisions rather than necessarily lower hardware costs. Although these models employ various efficiency techniques to reduce compute and GPU intensity, they still require the same or greater memory as model weights and active parameters expand. Arya also points out that every open-weight download creates a new customer-side memory socket that would not exist in a closed-model environment. Separately, Arya also sees another catalyst ahead. Micron’s restrictions on share buybacks under the CHIPS Act are expected to expire around December 2026, two years after the company received its first funding tranche in December 2024. That could pave the way for large-scale repurchases, particularly given the company’s projected free cash flow of b$120 billion–$130 billion annually over the next few years. A 40% payout policy would translate into approximately $50 billion–$60 billion in annual buybacks, equivalent to roughly 5%–6% of Micron’s ~$1 trillion market capitalization each year. Lastly, further adding to bullish sentiment, Micron, alongside Keurig Dr Pepper, has been added to BofA’s US 1 List. The list is designed to feature the firm’s strongest investment ideas from among Buy-rated, U.S.-listed stocks. Bottom line, Arya maintained a Buy rating on MU shares, along with a $1,550 price objective, implying the stock will gain 79% over the next year. (To watch Arya’s track record, click here) Arya’s objective is only slightly lower than the Street’s $1,569.29 average price target, a figure that calls for 12-month returns of 81%. On the rating front, Micron gets a Strong Buy consensus rating, based on a lopsided mix of 29 Buys and 1 Hold. (See Micron stock forecast) ### Related Stocks - [MIC.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MIC.US.md) - [MU.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MU.US.md) - [MUU.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MUU.US.md) - [MULL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MULL.US.md) - [MUD.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MUD.US.md) - [MUYY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MUYY.US.md) - [MUZ.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MUZ.US.md) - [KDP.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/KDP.US.md) - [BAC.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC.US.md) - [BAC-Q.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-Q.US.md) - [BML-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-L.US.md) - [BAC-L.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-L.US.md) - [BAC-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-K.US.md) - [BML-H.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-H.US.md) - [BAC-N.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-N.US.md) - [BAC-E.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-E.US.md) - [MER-K.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/MER-K.US.md) - [BAC-O.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-O.US.md) - [BML-G.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-G.US.md) - [BAC-M.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-M.US.md) - [BAC-B.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-B.US.md) - [BML-J.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BML-J.US.md) - [BAC-S.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-S.US.md) - [BAC-P.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/BAC-P.US.md) - [8648.JP](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/8648.JP.md) ## Related News & Research - [Micron Stock (MU) Forecast – Why Analysts Remain Bullish Despite the Recent Sell-Off](https://longbridge.com/en/news/294240064.md) - [Will Micron Stock (MU) Recover from Today's Fall?](https://longbridge.com/en/news/294094763.md) - [Micron Investors Get Another Reason to Be Nervous](https://longbridge.com/en/news/294237789.md) - [Will Micron Split Its Stock This Year?](https://longbridge.com/en/news/293369095.md) - [Dynamic AI Demands Drive Memory Diversity](https://longbridge.com/en/news/294244225.md)