Happy New Year to you, too, Jim. I think we're all let down by the late year sell-off in the stock. I'm wondering if possibly it's the whole industry (semi-equipment stocks) that is the reason. Cymer is down to 15 from a post-split price of about 46 or so. John Bolinger was just talking about this group of stocks on CNBC, commenting on how some are down to 30% of their earlier value this year. The folks over on the Cymer board are criticizing the co. execs about poor P-R there, too. When a stock is doing badly, it's natural to look for someone to blame. Sometimes, however, it's primarily market conditions that are mostly the reason for a sell-off, and not necessarily anything the company did. (Although in JMAR's case, the Swiss deal didn't help us.)
I think we have to assess the businesses that JMAR is in and ask ourselves whether we think they will do well in '98 or not. In my opinion, I think they will. The disk drive inspection systems will be a "hot" market. Just today, I heard that IBM has announced a new disk drive technology that will put many gigabytes of data on a disk the size of a postage stamp. (I'll try to post a link if I can find it.)
This is going to require even more precision inspection systems, and I would bet that JMAR will be able to do it.
biz.yahoo.com
I can't predict with certainty what will happen with the stock in the coming year, however, I feel better days are ahead. I just don't know how FAR ahead.
Betty |
