Yageo posts a record quarter and Murata's orders jump 56%, yet both stocks sit 40% below highs
Yageo just posted its seventh straight monthly revenue record and Murata's orders jumped 56 percent, yet both stocks trade roughly 40 percent below their highs. Two camps are pricing the same shortage in opposite ways, and the test arrives when Yageo reports October 29 and Murata October 30.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
The charge: records above, shares below
Yageo+0.16% — Yageo, up 0.16 percent today, the Taiwanese passive-components maker, said October 8 that third-quarter revenue hit a record TWD 49.50 billion, up 49.7 percent year on year, with September its seventh consecutive monthly record at TWD 17.10 billion, up 46.1 percent 1. Murata, the world's largest maker of multilayer ceramic capacitors, or MLCCs, booked June-quarter orders of JPY 673.869 billion, up 56.3 percent, on a backlog up 38.5 percent from March 31 3.
Equity investors are not paying up. Yageo last traded at TWD 636, 47.87 percent below its 52-week high of TWD 1,220, and Murata closed October 9 at JPY 7,970, about 38 percent below its peak of JPY 12,895 123.
Both stocks trade about 40 percent below their 52-week highs
- Latest close
- 52-week high
Data
| Latest close | 52-week high | |
|---|---|---|
| Yageo (TWD) | 636 | 1,220 |
| Murata (JPY) | 7,970 | 12,895 |
The evidence: the squeeze is real on the street
A single AI server carries 15,000 to 25,000 of these capacitors, and the market has split in two 6. In Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei component bazaar, prices for AI-server parts run at up to five times year-ago levels, and China's state broadcaster has reported some hot models at ten times their original price since the June rally began 7.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics, which splits the AI-server market with Murata, raised all MLCC prices by 30 percent on August 1, then signed its largest-ever long-term contract: 1.07 trillion won, about $781 million, to supply AI-server capacitors through December 2027, part of 2.25 trillion won in long-term deals since May 68.
Murata's capacity math explains the rush. An extra JPY 80 billion of capex approved in April lifts output only 10 to 15 percent, so the company is retiring part numbers across nine series to free lines for AI parts, finished a new production building in Vietnam on October 8, and put the world's smallest three-terminal capacitor into mass production on September 30 456.
Murata's June quarter: orders and profit grew almost three times faster than sales
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Revenue | 20.7% |
| Orders received | 56.3% |
| Operating profit | 59.8% |
The defense: the maker calls its own orders overheated
President Norio Nakajima told the July 31 results briefing that orders were "a bit overheated" and that Murata would not raise prices on existing products; the full-year outlook still assumes prices fall 6. Consumer-grade spot prices in Huaqiangbei have already dropped two-thirds from their peak, a correction one distributor calls "more speculative rather than driven by downstream demand" 7.
The scar is 2018: Murata's first price hike in 18 years delivered a record year, then two quarters of falling orders and a down 2019 6. Today's multiples are hardly pricing doom, at 54.8 times earnings for Murata and 42.8 for Yageo against 26.5 for TDK, the Japanese components maker, and Murata itself bought JPY 16.10 billion of its stock in September, JPY 76.10 billion so far of a JPY 150 billion authorization 23.
The market charges more for the squeeze: Murata and Yageo trade far above TDK
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Murata | 54.8x |
| Yageo | 42.8x |
| TDK | 26.5x |
The stake: a cheap way in, or already right
Yageo reports October 29, Murata October 30 13. The tell is Murata's July-September order figure against its own overheated call, and whether full-year guidance still assumes falling prices.
If contract prices follow spot, an order book up 56 percent plus a company buying back its own stock about 38 percent below its high is the cheapest listed way into the squeeze. If the spike is gray-market froth, 54.8 and 42.8 times earnings have already priced in more than enough.
Murata's list prices are unchanged while Huaqiangbei stalls charge five to ten times them. Another record order figure on October 30 says the shortage is reaching contract prices; a falling one says the resellers were the only buyers paying.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
