Sue Billat, analyst at BancBoston
Robertson Stephens, told
CBS.MarketWatch.com. "The equipment as I
understand it in talking with the equipment companies . . . the equipment
has been jostled around, but in general, we're not hearing any reports that
the equipment has been damaged."
Additionally, Billat said the equipment sits in very modern buildings on
shock-isolation pads.
"I don't think we're looking at a huge shortfall here. A number of
equipment companies are near the end of their quarter, so it's always
possible that orders they were expecting at the end of the quarter out of
Taiwan might be delayed a bit," she added.
Teradyne (TER: news, msgs) dropped 2 to 39 3/8 and Lam Research
(LRCX: news, msgs) stumbled 4 percent to 62 3/16.
"If there is a near-term supply issue, as there appears to be because of the
earthquake in Taiwan, that's a temporary aberration," added Bruce
Lupatkin, general partner at North Bay Technology Partners. "But, to me
that doesn't change the fundamental prospects or alter the long-term
trend."
Taking another view was Altera. The programmable logic device maker
said it's confident it will meet customer demand for its products. See press
release. Nevertheless, Altera (ALTR: news, msgs) lost 2 3/4 to 50 1/8. |
