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BlockBeats News, June 18th, Micron Technology once again became the focus of AI hardware transactions. Several Wall Street institutions have recently raised the target price of the storage chip manufacturer, citing the increasing demand for AI servers driving up the supply-demand tension of DRAM, HBM, and NAND. Deutsche Bank analyst Melissa Weathers raised Micron's target price from $1000 to $1500, implying a further upside of about 47% from the previous closing price. FactSet data shows that TD Cowen and Cantor Fitzgerald have also recently set a $1500 target price. Micron's stock price has already risen significantly this year, with the stock up about 266% since 2026 and a surge of over 750% in the past 12 months. The market's core belief is that AI data centers not only need GPUs but also require more high-bandwidth storage, enterprise SSDs, and regular DRAM to support training, inference, and AI agent workloads. TD Cowen goes further to believe that agentic AI will increase the memory content required per unit of AI computing power and extend the period of strong pricing. RBC also believes that this round of the DRAM uptrend cycle may last several quarters. MarketWatch believes that Micron and Sandisk's technical indicators are in extremely overbought territory. Investors will be focusing on Micron's earnings next week (after the bell on Wednesday, June 24, 2026), particularly on shipments, prices, gross margins, and 2026 capacity guidance. If the company fails to provide strong enough supply-demand evidence, the high expectations for storage stocks may face a concentrated test. At the time of writing, Micron closed up 2.2% and rose 3.31% after hours.

BlockBeats News, June 18 — Semiconductor equipment stocks rose in the US market on Wednesday after Citi raised its price targets for Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA, maintaining its buy ratings and stating that AI capital spending by major tech companies continues to be revised upward. Citi analyst Atif Malik raised Applied Materials' price target from $550 to $710, Lam Research from $315 to $450, and KLA from $206.40 to $290. According to Investor's Business Daily, Applied Materials closed up 4.4% on Wednesday, hitting a historic intraday high; Lam Research also briefly reached a new peak. This report is seen by the market as a repricing of the wafer manufacturing equipment sector. Citi expects that fueled by investments in AI computing power, storage expansion, and advanced processes, the global WFE market size could grow from $145 billion in 2026 to $200 billion in 2027, and reach $250 billion in 2028. For the Asian market, this logic directly applies to semiconductor equipment, advanced packaging, storage expansion, and wafer fab capital expenditures. Previously, the market focused more on GPUs and complete servers, but now sellers are spreading optimism across the AI industry chain to the equipment used to manufacture AI chips. The risk is that equipment stocks have already surged significantly, and valuations are highly sensitive to capital expenditure expectations. If AI spending by cloud providers slows down or storage manufacturers strengthen their expansion discipline, the earnings elasticity on the equipment side could also amplify in the opposite direction.

```htmlAccording to Golden Ten Data on June 18, strategists from OCBC Group Research said that, against the backdrop of the Federal Reserve maintaining a hawkish stance, the short-term upside for Asian currencies against the US dollar may be limited, especially for low-yielding currencies and those more sensitive to US Treasury movements, including the Thai baht, Korean won, and to some extent, the Singapore dollar. However, they added that falling oil prices remain a significant offsetting factor, easing current account and inflationary pressures for oil-importing currencies such as the Indian rupee, Philippine peso, and Indonesian rupiah.```