A trader paid $12.5 million for Micron calls expiring January 15 at $600 after a 17.46% drop
A $12.5 million block of January 2027 $600 calls went off at the ask the day after Micron's worst one-day drop of the year, while the company itself splits its capital: $31 billion of new Singapore capacity moving ahead, a $4.5 billion Taiwan plant paused. The December quarter guide is the number both camps must beat.
Vincent Jiangthree-minute read
Micron+5.30% — Micron, up 5.30 percent today printed the best quarter in its history and the market answered with the worst single day of the year. Fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 revenue hit $54.23 billion, up 379% year over year, with adjusted earnings of $33.42 a share 1. On November 5 the stock closed at $656.39 anyway, down 17.46% in one session, more than 40% below the June 25 record of $1,213.56 2. On November 6 the money split into two camps, and one of them wrote a very large check 2.
Revenue has multiplied more than six-fold in two years, and the market still sold it
Data
| Revenue | |
|---|---|
| Q4 '24 | $8.71B |
| Q1 '25 | $8.05B |
| Q2 '25 | $9.3B |
| Q3 '25 | $11.32B |
| Q4 '25 | $13.64B |
| Q1 '26 | $23.86B |
| Q2 '26 | $41.46B |
| Q3 '26 | $54.23B |
A $12.5 million bet says the crash is wrong
The same day the stock rebounded 5.12% to a $690 close 7, a buyer paid $12.5 million for a single block of Micron calls expiring January 15, 2027, at a $600 strike, taken at the ask 2. Repeated clusters of the same contract pushed open interest above 5,000 2.
This is a leveraged wager that memory scarcity outlasts the panic, and it carries a hard clock: if Micron sits below $600 on January 15, the calls expire worthless.
Micron is building and pausing at the same time
The company's own capital plan cannot decide which cycle it believes. On November 7 it confirmed two Singapore projects are moving ahead: a $7 billion high-bandwidth memory packaging plant, its first outside Taiwan, with initial output expected early 2027, and a $24 billion, ten-year double-story wafer fab due to operate in the second half of 2028 3.
Meanwhile Fab 11E in Taoyuan, the $4.5 billion advanced DRAM plant paused amid the union dispute covered here on November 5, sits idle 4. Micron is spending on capacity where it believes demand is durable, and holding back where it does not.
Micron sits more than 40% below its June peak despite record earnings
A 17.46% one-day drop, then a 5% rebound, both far below June's peak
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| June 25 peak | 1,213.56 |
| Nov 5 close | 656.39 |
| Nov 6 close | 690 |
Two camps, two dates
The bear case has a name: ChangXin Memory Technologies−4.98% — ChangXin Memory Technologies, down 4.98 percent today, China's leading memory chipmaker, which in October announced plans to roll out a server memory product based on a new architecture with higher storage density, with no shipping date or specifications disclosed. Analysts, including Rosenblatt's Kevin Cassidy, question whether CXMT can scale the design and say it is unlikely to swing the supply-demand equation 5.
Micron meets the threat from strength: more than 75% of its 2027 output is already committed, and long-term customer commitments rose to $32 billion from $22 billion in June 6. The bull case is the multiple: Micron closed November 6 at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 3.8, the lowest in a year, against 12.4 for storage peer Seagate−1.23% — Seagate, down 1.23 percent today 7. Both camps now share two dates: Micron's December quarter report, expected mid-December 6, and the January 15 option expiry 2.
Watch the December print, then the strike
Large options blocks are signals, not guarantees; a buyer can be hedging a wider book 2. What is testable is the yardstick both camps agreed on: Micron's fiscal Q1 2027 guide of about $61.5 billion in revenue and $38.15 adjusted EPS, within a $60 billion to $63 billion range 16.
If the December report lands on that guide, the $600 strike looks cheap at 3.8 times forward earnings 7. If CXMT publishes yield figures first, or the Taoyuan dispute drags construction past 2028 45, the $12.5 million and the open interest above it die on January 15 2.
Get Chips by email, free
How AI demand is reshaping chipmakers, memory and the fabs behind them. In our daily email, every weekday.
