Micron: A $1,000 Ride (42 Years & Counting)

It’s a curious thing, time. Forty-two years, in the grand scheme, isn’t all that long. Yet, if you happened to have put a thousand dollars into Micron Technology back in 1984 – a sum that, adjusted for inflation, wouldn’t buy you much more than a decent used sofa today – well, let’s just say you’d be in a rather different position now. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most extraordinary returns come from the most unassuming beginnings.

Back then, Micron was a fledgling memory chip maker based in Boise, Idaho. Ordering stock wasn’t the instantaneous click-and-trade affair we’re accustomed to. No, you’d have to call a broker. A human being! And then wait. Imagine. No real-time confirmation, just the slightly anxious anticipation of a paper statement arriving in the mail. It feels positively prehistoric now, doesn’t it?

So, what if you’d been one of those early, patient investors? Let’s trace the journey. The mid-to-late 1980s saw the personal computer taking hold, and Micron, supplying the DRAM chips that made it all possible, benefited handsomely. That initial $1,000 would have blossomed into roughly $5,700. Not bad. A decent sofa and a television, perhaps.

But the late 1990s? That’s where things got interesting. The internet was exploding, and the demand for memory chips went absolutely vertical. Micron grew into a behemoth, one of the world’s largest memory producers. By March 2000, at the peak of the dot-com frenzy, that original $1,000 would have been worth over $50,000. Enough for a very comfortable sofa, a television, and maybe a small island. (Okay, probably not the island.)

Then, inevitably, came the reckoning. The dot-com bubble burst with a spectacular lack of grace, and Micron, along with much of the tech sector, suffered a brutal correction. It’s a useful reminder that even the most promising technologies are subject to the whims of market exuberance and, eventually, gravity.

The company persevered, innovating through the 2000s and 2010s, but it took nearly two decades for the stock to fully recover its dot-com highs. Patience, it seems, is not just a virtue, but a necessity in the world of long-term investing. As of January 27, 2026, that initial $1,000 investment would be worth approximately $414,500. That’s…a lot of sofas.

To put it another way: Every dollar invested in Micron in 1984 has grown into around $414 today. It’s a remarkable compound annual growth rate, and a testament to the enduring importance of memory technology. Which, when you think about it, is rather fundamental to everything we do with computers.

Micron continues to perform well in 2026, yet its valuation remains reasonable. Currently trading at around 12 times forward earnings – considerably lower than the tech sector average of 25 – it doesn’t appear overvalued. Given the ever-increasing demand for memory in everything from smartphones to artificial intelligence, there’s a strong case to be made that Micron still has significant upside potential. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the most extraordinary opportunities are hiding in plain sight.

2026-01-31 16:52

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