Jim Cramer has strong message for Micron stock investors

Micron Technology has been one of the most electric stories in the entire AI trade. Its shares are up nearly 700% over the past year as the memory chip maker rides surging demand for the components that power AI data centers.

Jim Cramer has tracked the stock closely for months, praising CEO Sanjay Mehrotra as almost too humble, given what the company has managed to build.

So when Micron shares dropped even as Cramer insisted the underlying business had never looked stronger, he had a very specific explanation, and it had almost nothing to do with Micron itself.

Jim Cramer blames Samsung for Micron stock drop

Cramer had just returned from touring Micron's facilities in Boise, Idaho, where he came away convinced the demand story was real. "It was very clear the demand was incredible; they're going to make a fortune," he said, according to Insider Monkey .

But days later, shares dropped anyway, and Cramer pointed straight at South Korea.

The trigger was Samsung's shareholder-return announcement, which investors judged as inadequate next to what rival SK Hynix had already committed to.

"The Samsung buyback was regarded as not good enough. And that's because they didn't end up crunching shares, unlike SK Hynix," Cramer said, describing the reaction as "chimerical," given how strong Micron's own fundamentals looked, Benzinga reported .

The comparison matters because SK Hynix had set a high bar. The company unveiled plans in August to repurchase and cancel roughly 40 trillion Korean won, or about $28.6 billion, worth of its own shares between Aug. 20 and Nov. 19, giving investors a concrete number to measure Samsung against, according to 24/7 Wall St .

Samsung had been expected to reveal shareholder returns exceeding $72 billion, a figure that made the eventual announcement look underwhelming by comparison.

Cramer's point was not really about Samsung being wrong. It was about how the market works. "It's not whether they should be; it's that they are," he said, according to Benzinga.

Micron moves when Samsung moves. That is the trade right now, and being right about Micron's fundamentals does not protect you from it.

The Micron fundamentals Cramer says the market is ignoring

Micron's most recent quarter gave Cramer plenty of ammunition for his bull case.