Mitchell,
Agreed. It may still take six months for all elements of chip demand to recover (read: for DRAM chips demand to catch up with supply); but it is a rational gamble that demand will recover, and then new fabs will be opened. About 85% of all spending on fab construction is in equipment. And Semitool is a potential target for consolidation too. Since the CEO owns a majority interest in the stock, a stock swap would be easy to achieve, if he so desired. So we may have to wait a while, but it will make us money.
The next big key will be 2d quarter earnings released in late April. What we need is some leadership from the "big dogs" in the tech sector. If IBM, INTC, or MSFT makes its earnings convincingly, then I believe that we will explode on the upside. Once again from "dogs" to "darlings". If not, then we will muddle along to 3d quarter and play the same game again!
You did the right thing in not buying last time and sticking to your limit order, even if you missed making a few dollars on the particular trade. Particularly tech stocks wobble back and forth in large price ranges. I myself have been "pinging" at CS and CSCO in the network stocks. So far I have failed to acquire either at a price that I consider reasonable. If I do, great, but if I don't c'est la vie. But best to maintain your discipline and not get too heavily involved in "the hunt", but only in its results.
As for Semitool, the company releases a minimum amount of data. It rides and falls mainly on its earnings announcements alone. They must have careful securities attorneys!!
Sincerely,
Doug F.
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