UPDATE: Raymond James Makes Tactical Call on Micron (MU) and Upgrades Stock to 'Strong Buy'

(Updated - April 15, 2016 9:48 AM EDT)

Raymond James upgraded Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) from Outperform to Strong Buy with a price target of $17.00. Analyst Hans Mosesmann said he thinks 3D NAND SSDs are near a "tipping-point."

The analyst explained, "We are making a tactical upgrade of Micron to Strong Buy from Outperform off of the Seagate weakness driven by an increasing level of enterprise applications shifting to cloud environments. Translation: NAND and specifically 3D NAND SSDs are starting a tippingpoint dynamic relative to traditional HDDs, and we are in the early innings. Additionally, 3D XPoint memory also plays on this theme and presents an interesting optionality for investors."

"NAND is highly price elastic, and Seagate appears to signal this elasticity will manifest itself as the year progresses, given 3D NAND not only has performance advantages vs. HDD, but also has significant cost and density advantages vs. 2D NAND SSDs. To wit, Micron’s 3D NAND TLC Gen-1 varietal has a +25% cost advantage over its current 16nm 2D NAND solutions. Of course the PC market data points from Seagate (notable weakness in desktops and lower-end notebooks) are of concern but rather well known, and we believe this dynamic is already appropriately modeled in consensus estimates for Micron," added Mosesmann.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Micron Technology click here. For more ratings news on Micron Technology click here.

Shares of Micron Technology closed at $10.40 yesterday.

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