Micron, Crypto and Jobs: The Bull Market Just Got 3 New Catalysts

It turned into a relatively busy week, with several key market developments potentially providing fresh fuel for the bull market.

This morning, the latest employment data showed a slowdown in hiring, which the market welcomed as it reduced expectations for further rate hikes. On Wednesday evening, Micron delivered another outstanding earnings report, reinforcing the strength of the AI infrastructure boom. And finally, Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have continued to gain momentum, signaling a notable improvement in risk appetite.

Taken together, these developments have helped support increasingly constructive price action across risk assets. The Nasdaq is printing fresh all-time highs this morning, while the S&P 500 is knocking on the door of record highs.

Micron Technology Crushes Earnings and the Stock Points Higher

Micron Technology (MU) delivered another outstanding earnings report Wednesday evening, reinforcing the strength of the AI-driven memory boom. Revenue, earnings and margins all surged, while management offered another strong outlook as demand continues to overwhelm available supply.

More important than any single quarter, however, is memory’s rapidly growing importance within the AI infrastructure buildout. According to UBS estimates, memory represented roughly 14% of total AI capital spending in 2025, but that share is expected to jump to 37% in 2026 and 64% by 2027.

That is an extraordinary shift and helps explain the dramatic acceleration in Micron’s business. As increasingly memory-intensive AI systems are deployed, demand for DRAM, HBM and NAND continues to rise while new supply remains difficult to bring online quickly.

Micron is sitting directly in the middle of that supply-demand imbalance, and its latest results suggest the cycle still has considerable momentum.

The price action is also encouraging. After peaking at the start of the summer following a manic year-long rally, Micron spent several months building a broad sideways consolidation and digesting those gains.

Over the last few weeks, shares broke decisively above that range before forming another bullish continuation pattern. Now, Micron appears to be breaking out from that bull flag as well, potentially setting the stage for another leg higher in the near term.

Jobs Report: Weaker, But Not Necessarily Weak

This morning’s employment report was undeniably soft. The U.S. economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, while July was revised down to a 10,000-job loss and August was revised lower to 133,000. Altogether, July and August payroll growth was reduced by another 60,000 jobs.

For markets, however, there may be a silver lining. The weakening labor data reduces pressure on the Fed to raise rates again and has helped pull Treasury yields lower.

More importantly, today’s payroll numbers may not be quite as alarming as they would have been several years ago. The number of new jobs needed each month simply to keep unemployment stable has fallen considerably as population and labor-force growth have slowed. St. Louis Fed estimates put that breakeven rate somewhere around 15,000 to 87,000 jobs per month.

So there are really two messages in today’s report. Hiring has clearly cooled, and the downward revisions reinforce that trend. But 29,000 jobs today does not necessarily carry the same recessionary implications it once would have.

For investors, that could prove to be a favorable combination: enough labor-market cooling to ease pressure on interest rates, without yet signaling a major deterioration in the economy.

For investors, that combination could be constructive: enough cooling to take pressure off interest rates, without clear evidence that the economy is rolling over.

Bitcoin Goes from Laggard to Market Leader

One of the more interesting developments over the last three months has been the dramatic change in Bitcoin’s relative performance.

Earlier in the summer, Bitcoin (IBIT) was a notable laggard even as technology stocks continued to advance. That divergence raised questions about risk appetite and liquidity beneath the surface of the market. Since then, however, the picture has changed sharply.

As the chart shows, Bitcoin has gone from severe underperformance to major outperformance, gaining roughly 35% over the period compared with about 10% for the Nasdaq 100. Just as importantly, Bitcoin has repeatedly consolidated those gains in bullish continuation patterns before breaking higher again.

That matters beyond crypto itself. Bitcoin tends to be one of the more liquidity- and risk-sensitive assets in financial markets, so renewed leadership can be viewed as evidence that investors are becoming increasingly willing to take risk.

It is not a perfect market-timing signal, but alongside new highs in technology stocks, easing pressure from interest rates, and continued strength in AI spending, Bitcoin’s breakout adds another piece of evidence that the broader risk-on environment is improving.

The Bull Market Gets More Support

Taken together, this week’s developments strengthen the broader bull case. Micron’s results confirm that the AI infrastructure boom remains firmly intact, softer labor data is taking pressure off interest rates, and Bitcoin’s resurgence points to improving liquidity and risk appetite.

There are still risks, particularly if the labor market weakens more sharply from here. But for now, the combination of strong earnings, easing rate pressure and improving participation across risk assets continues to favor further upside.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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