Neal Freiman

Wait, why are we running into a wall again is a question you might ask.

Here is the quick answer.

AI.

It all comes back to AI.

Big tech companies like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google are building galaxies of AI data centers, all that require loads of memory to run.

And to capitalize, companies that make memory chips, such as Micron and Samsung, have diverted their production lines to make memory specifically for data centers, leaving the consumer gadget makers like smartphone and PC companies fighting for the scraps.

Toby, welcome to Ramageddon.

The way I remember DRAM is the Daft Punk album, Random Access Memories, because it stands for Dynamic Random Access Memories.

And these companies are getting whacked.

Have you looked at Nintendo's stock charts recently?

Can't say I have, actually.

Okay, well, it's disgusting to look at.

Nintendo stock is down 45% over the last six months, and it's all because of memory.

They just had their earnings call.

Earlier in February, they said that the memory shortage is going to squeeze margins of the Switch 2, and their stock promptly lost 11%.

We also saw this happen with Apple.

Apple had an amazing earnings, right?

They were like, we just had the best quarter we've ever had.

They're selling 23% more iPhones.

But the only thing investors paid attention to was the rising prices of memory that Tim Cook talked about, and their stock fell, which was very perplexing given how good of a quarter they had.