IMO, the market is currently pricing in a YOY increase in semi capex, while (another) YOY decline in 2003 is becoming more and more likely. Intel and the foundries are the bellwethers. They have overcapacity, low capacity utilization, no visibility, and have announced lower capex in 2003. This should be expected, given all the political/military uncertainties, and the fragility of the economic recovery.
Basically, the only two economies in the world with strong end-demand are the US and China, and in both cases, that demand is only being sustained by record and increasing debt loads (corporate, government, personal), clearly an unsustainable situation.
Everyone is assuming that Gulf War V2.0 will be a rerun of V1.0. This will happen only if everything goes right, if all the optimistic assumptions happen. But so much could go wrong. One clear difference that has already emerged, is that there is zero popular support for this war, in Europe (except England), and in the Middle East (except Israel). We have squandered all the global sympathy and solidarity we had after 9/11. |
