TECH STOCKS: Micron President: 'Good Demand' In Memory

By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Micron Technology rose Friday a day after the semiconductor company beat Wall Street's earnings and revenue estimates.

Among other tech stocks, shares of GrubHub (GRUB) , the online food delivery company, jumped 48% as the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Micron (MU) was up 0.5% at $24.13, as executives at the Boise, Idaho-based chip company painted an upbeat picture of the memory-chip market and reported a sharp gain in sales.

"We've seen pretty good demand signals on the memory side," Micron President Mark Adams told MarketWatch. "We feel pretty bullish for the memory market for consumer and client devices," he added, as he also pointed to strong demand in the server and networking market.

Micron has been going through a transition following its acquisition of another memory chip company, Elipida, which was widely expected to strengthen its market position, and a fire that damaged the plant of rival Hynix, which limited supply of DRAM chips.

On the call with analysts on Thursday, Adams said the DRAM market "has normalized following the recovery of one of our competitor's fabs in China." Still, he added, "DRAM market conditions remain favorable. And inventories in the channel remain relatively tight below normal levels."

Topeka Capital analyst Suji De Silva raised his price target for the stock to $27 from $25. "With healthy supply-demand balance and pricing, Micron margins improved and we expect the company to sustain these higher margin levels going forward," he told clients.

"We also believe Micron demand is firming across multiple end markets, supported by the company's product development efforts," he added.

Shares of other chip companies rose. SanDisk Corp.(SNDK), another memory chip maker, was up 3%, while Intel Corp. (INTC) rose a fraction.

On the downside, newly-split Google stocks were in the red after posting gains on their first day of trading on Thursday. The Class A Google shares (GOOGL) were down 1.9%, while the non-voting Class C shares (GOOG) were off 1.7%.

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) was down a fraction at 4,234, although the benchmark was on track to end the week with a 2% gain. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) were each up a fraction.

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