Shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) were rallying today, up 5.2% as of 1:11 p.m. ET on Monday. The beaten-down maker of memory and storage chips didn't report any news of its own, but several positive industry developments today conspired to ignite a big move in the stock.
These included news of two competitors potentially merging, lowering competition in the oversupplied NAND flash sector. Also, positive analyst commentary on the semiconductor sector and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) announcement of a big investment in OpenAI sparked optimism for chip stocks more broadly.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) and Japanese flash producer Kioxia were in talks to potentially merge, and that talks had progressed, with an outline for the merged company's structure. Should the merger happen, it would likely entail a dual listing of the merged companies in the U.S. and Japan, with Western Digital's management likely to run the combined entity.
Source Fool.com