MU is a buy with 36% upside to $1,395, but less preferred than NVDA due to lower moat and 2028 pricing risk.

Nvidia and Micron are two of the companies benefiting most from the huge increase in spending on creating data centers. Micron's revenue increased by more than 4 x in its most recently completed quarter from the same time last year, while Nvidia's revenues have soared to approach $303 billion.

But which one of these two is the better stock to buy at current market prices? That's the question I want to answer in this video by comparing the two head to head. Since 2023 business is booming for Nvidia and for more recently business is booming for Micron.

You can see Nvidia's sales boom in 2023, soaring, surpassing Micron in revenues. Their revenues were close in 2022 and in fact for the better part of the previous decade before 2022, Micron generated more revenue than Nvidia.

But in recent years you can see since 2023, Nvidia's revenues have soared and it's now more than triple that of Micron.

Micron's revenue has increased more recently benefiting from soaring prices for memory as the proliferation of agentic AI has made memory and storage that much more important. Micron's revenues increased to over $90 billion in the most recent trailing 12-month period, while Nvidia's are approaching $303 billion.

Looking forward, Micron and Nvidia are expected to generate significant revenue growth for at least a couple of more years, probably three more years at the least. The contracts that these companies have signed have extended beyond these next couple of years as the purchases of these technologies have made it more urgent to secure supply ahead of their needs.

And so, Nvidia and Micron have more visibility into what their sales look like, not just for 2026, but also for 2027 and 2028, with Micron informing investors that it signed strategic customer agreements that are spanning all the way out until 2030. This is a new development.

Typically, Nvidia and Micron sell their products in the year they're launched with agreements loosely connected to the buyers of the technology. But, since there's been significant shortages, and Nvidia's and Micron's products have been sold out for a couple of years now, buyers of the technology are planning ahead, securing agreements for Micron and Nvidia for many years into the future.

That's good news for Nvidia and Micron. It makes their business more manageable. If they know what their customers want next year and the year after that, they can plan accordingly.

They can work with their suppliers. They can work with their supply chain and make sure that they have enough product to meet that demand. It lowers the risk for research and development.

They know what kind of products to research and development because they have conversations with their biggest customers, and their customers inform them what they'll be looking for. That's all been great for Nvidia and Micron.

Now, to make matters more impressive, these companies have been generating booming sales with booming profit margins. In fact, Micron's operating profit margin in the most recently completed quarter exceeded 80%.

It's something I haven't seen with any other company that I've been following in the previous decade. It's the first time I've ever seen an operating profit margin above 80%.

Looking at it on a trailing 12-month basis, Micron's operating profit margin ticked above Nvidia at 65.75%

These are excellent operating profit margins and until recently Visa had been the company with the highest operating profit margin in the 60% range and Nvidia, Micron, and a few other companies are now approaching these levels of profitability given booming demand for semiconductors.

Now, for Nvidia I think it's operating profit margin in the 60% range is more sustainable than Micron. However, in the short run, I believe Micron's operating profit margin will likely exceed Nvidia's probably for the next 12 months.

Uh it would be reasonable to assume over the next 24 months as well because Micron is selling its products at higher prices. Micron has more flexibility to increase prices in its products over the next 12 to 24 months.

However, looking longer term, Micron has less flexibility to generate those higher average selling prices compared to Nvidia, which has more competitive advantage, more negotiating power to sustain its prices at where they're at, relatively speaking.

So, with Micron, there's a risk that maybe 2 years from now or 3 years from now when the supply demand dynamics improve in the storage and memory markets, that Micron's price per unit will drop.

And even if it drops, Micron's management team has these agreements in place where there's a floor to the level that the price per unit can drop in its strategic customer agreements.

So, profit margins are likely to stay elevated for at least the next 12 months for these two, probably the next 24 months, and then we'll start to hear about what the prospects look like 36 and 48 months into the future.

And that's been the next big thing with these companies as I mentioned earlier. We're getting more and more visibility into demand and supply for these companies. We're now looking two or three years into the future because we know that they're sold out for the next 12 months.

We know that they're probably sold out for the next 24 months. So now we're thinking about three years into the future, four years into the future, five years into the future.

What's the situation going to look like for these two? And for many investors, there's a lot of concern about that because all of these data centers that are being built right now, there's concern that there's overbuilding.

And at a certain point, those consumers of the capacity in these data centers will no longer need all of that excess demand.

And so there will be investors are concerned that there will be a big drop-off in demand. Not this year, not next year, because those agreements are largely in place, but maybe three years from now, maybe four years from now, will Nvidia and Micron experience a big drop-off in sales? And that's a risk, to be sure.

But one thing investors can take comfort in is these data centers that were built starting in 2023, those components will need to be replaced and upgraded, right? When we look two years into the future, we're going to be looking into 2028, 2029.

So those components that are in data centers from 2022 and 2023, those will be getting outdated and they'll need to be replaced. So then Nvidia and Micron can generate revenue from the replacement cycle.

So each and every year there's going to be demand from those outdated products that need to be replaced.

But will that be enough to sustain revenues at these levels? That's the big question mark and profit margins at these levels. So, just like their operating profit margins, their returns on invested capital are improving dramatically and I would say unsustainably.

Whereas Micron, it owns the manufacturing facilities in the United States and around the world. And so, it needs to invest billions of dollars in manufacturing capacity and improving the manufacturing technology each and every year.

So, it has a lower upside in terms of how much return on invested capital it can generate and a lower much worse downside as well.

So, Micron's return on invested capital is also soaring at 63%. Excellent, but also I think unsustainable. If Micron can generate a 40% return on invested capital for a duration of multiple years, that'll add significant value to shareholders.

If it can achieve 63% or above, that's icing on the cake. The good news is over the next 12 to 24 months, Micron's likely to return a elevated level of ROIC because the products are selling at such such higher prices than Micron was expecting and the industry was expecting.

So, the profits will be excellent for at least the next 12 to 24 months.

All right, so we looked at performance, revenue, profitability, returns on invested capital. Excellent, excellent, and excellent for Micron and Nvidia. As I mentioned, they're benefiting significantly from the booming demand for data centers and the components that are going into those data centers.

Nvidia is trading at a forward price to earnings of 14.5. This is a relatively cheap valuation. As I mentioned earlier, investors are concerned that revenue and profits are going to fall off a cliff for Nvidia and Micron.

Not this year, not next year, but starting 2028, maybe 2029. There is a palatable concern from the investor community that revenue and profits are going to fall off a cliff. And so, valuations for Nvidia and Micron are accounting for that risk.

Nvidia is selling at a forward price to earnings of just 14.5.

Costco is selling at a forward PE that's almost triple Nvidia, and maybe six or seven times Micron, right? And these These companies that are not growing anywhere near the rates that Nvidia and Micron are growing or generating profit margins anywhere near these levels.

So, that just puts into context the fear factor with Nvidia and Micron and how much it's baked into the valuation already. It's not something that investors are complacent about, right?

I don't see very much of that with Nvidia and Micron. The valuations are relatively cheap compared to the average stock in the market, compared to the profits and earnings and profit margins that these companies are generating.

Comparatively, Micron is selling at less than half the price of Nvidia. And I think that's justified. I as I mentioned earlier, I think Nvidia's competitive advantages are more durable than Micron.

Micron's memory and storage products are not all that differentiated from competitors like SK Hynix and Samsung. In fact, Micron in HBM is trailing SK Hynix.

Whereas Nvidia is the absolute leader in accelerated computing, in the AI factory that it delivers to its customers with the software along with the hardware. So, I feel Nvidia's competitive advantages are more durable, its selling price more sustainable, whereas Micron is benefiting in the short term from the supply demand situation.

Which as soon as that corrects, estimates suggest that 2028 will be the year where we'll start to see a more balanced memory and storage market. 2026, 2027 likely still benefiting Micron, but 2028 perhaps a better equilibrium.

But for Nvidia, it's not benefiting from only the supply-demand dynamics. It's benefiting because its product its holistic product offering is at least one step ahead of the competition.

And some would argue at least two steps ahead of the competition. And so I feel it's more durable and so it deserves a more premium valuation compared to Micron when measuring on a forward PE basis.

So with Micron, I calculated a fair value of $1,395 compared to the market price of $1,024. I calculated an upside of 36% on Micron stock at current market prices.

For Nvidia, I calculated a fair value of $338. A current market price at $224 leaves over 50% upside for Nvidia. So when measuring on a DCF basis, Nvidia stock looks more undervalued than Micron stock.

Additionally, on a forward PE basis, I feel Nvidia's premium valuation is justified by the more durable competitive advantage.

But of course, we're going to learn more about Micron. Micron is scheduled to report quarterly financial results at the end of September. I'm going to be going live to cover those results.

So, if I had to pick between these two, Micron or Nvidia as the better stock to buy at current market prices, I would pick Nvidia. And it would be a relatively easy decision for me compared at these market prices.

In fact, I own Nvidia stock in my portfolio. It fluctuates between Nvidia and Netflix as my top position in my portfolio depending on the price action in the day. So, I might be a little biased, but I'm biased because my research has pointed me in that direction where I've chosen Nvidia over Micron.

They're both excellent. I have them both ranked as buying opportunities, but if I had to pick only one, I would pick Nvidia.