Nikkei Hits Record on Micron Earnings, AI Shares Gain

2026-06-25

Japan's Nikkei share average briefly hit an all-time high on the Tokyo stock market on the 25th. It rose 3,247 yen, or 5%, from the previous day to 72,422 yen, surpassing the previous closing record of 72,353 yen set on the 22nd. Strong earnings from U.S. semiconductor memory giant Micron Technology eased concerns over AI demand and triggered broad buying in related stocks.

Micron results improve market sentiment

In results announced on U.S. time on the 24th for the March-May 2026 quarter, revenue came to 41.456 billion dollars, 4.5 times higher than a year earlier, while net profit rose 15-fold to 28.243 billion dollars. Both topped market forecasts. The surge in AI-related orders helped deliver record quarterly results. The revenue outlook for the June-August 2026 quarter also exceeded expectations, sending the stock sharply higher in after-hours trading.

Kazuyuki Muramatsu, head of investment management at Wa Capital, said the earnings had been seen as a watershed and described them as better than perfect, calling them a positive surprise. Kazuyoshi Saito, senior analyst at IwaiCosmo Securities, also said the results confirmed the memory market remains tight and is likely to stay that way over the medium to long term.

Ripple effect reaches Tokyo

Micron's strength also spread to Tokyo. Kioxia Holdings, which makes NAND flash memory, at one point rose nearly 15%. Saito said the market view gained ground that Kioxia, as a pure-play NAND maker, would be better placed to expand its share after Micron signaled it would prioritize manufacturing DRAM for short-term memory.

AI-related shares broadly also stayed firm. The biggest contributor to the Nikkei was Advantest, which rose by more than 950 yen. The combined contribution of four stocks, including Tokyo Electron, SoftBank Group and Kioxia, exceeded 1,800 yen. Related component makers such as Ibiden, Taiyo Yuden and Murata Manufacturing also drew buying. Kohei Onishi, senior investment strategy researcher at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, said investors saw an improvement in the environment for the AI and semiconductor sector as a whole, not just Micron, easing concerns across a wide range of stocks.

Supply chain and lower rates also help

Behind the move was growing hope for better earnings across the semiconductor supply chain. Shinito Yamamoto, chief analyst at Nissay Asset Management, said Micron's bullish capital spending outlook for the next fiscal year strengthened views that benefits would spread across the entire supply chain, including manufacturing equipment.

Lower rates in Japan and the United States, tracking falls in crude oil prices, also provided support. Rising interest rates increase the burden when discounting companies' future earnings to present value, making them a headwind for high-tech stocks, where future growth tends to matter most. Yasuyuki Todoshita, senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities Economic Research Institute, said recent declines in rates have brought price-to-earnings ratios for AI and semiconductor stocks to levels that are easier to justify.

Still, AI and semiconductor shares remain highly sensitive to negative news. On the 23rd, reports said South Korea's SK Hynix would prioritize production of general-purpose DRAM over high-bandwidth memory for AI, or HBM, prompting a sharp correction in Japanese and U.S. stocks. Earlier this month, earnings from U.S. chipmaker Broadcom also weighed on the market. After the AI rally that has run since the start of the year, expectations have been lifted, making shares less responsive to results that only slightly beat forecasts.

Masahiro Yamaguchi, head of investment research at SMBC Trust Bank, warned that bad news can easily become a trigger for profit-taking and that a volatile move sparked by summer earnings from related companies could happen at any time. The durability of the AI rally remains in focus.

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