As pointed out in the previous post, the group sum has
climbed to a point that is roughly comparable to the group
value in October 1997, approximately 2 years ago. I took
the data from the week closing 10/17/97 and compared it to
Friday's close. There are several interesting things to
note, a few of which follow:
The group sum from Friday's close is 3 percent above the
close of 2 years ago, while the SOX- X has gained 60
percent. The 4 SOX -X components in the group, AMAT, TER,
KLAC and NVLS are up 116, 52, 37 and 36 percent
respectively. AMAT was obviously a key driver in the SOX-X
gain of 60 percent, while the other 3 sort of a drag on
performance.
Two relatively small cap stocks, PHTN and LTXX, sit at the
top of the table with the biggest gains. The PHTN gain of
426 percent was particularly awesome. Does anyone care to
comment on why the outstanding performance? Was it good
management - do they have sole source technology - do they
have any real competitors - is this company another Intel or
Microsoft - etc? I haven't followed the company so I do not
have any insight into these kinds of questions.
Over this 2 year period, 15 stocks are up and 21 are down.
Perhaps another good question at this point is: Where do we
go from here? Are the positive performers over the 2 year
period going to give us more of the same, or will some of
those stocks in the bottom part of the table bring better
percentage gains over the next 2 year period? A potential
list of positive performers from the bottom half of the list
might be SFAM, CFMT, SVGI, FSII, UTEK, BRKS, WFR, VECO,
ETEC, COHU, ATMI, PLAB, DPMI, PRIA AND KLIC.
10/17/97 10/29/99
CLOSE CLOSE PERCENT
SYMBOL COMPANY PRICE PRICE CHANGE
PHTN Photon Dynamics 5.75 30.25 426
LTXX LTX 6.13 15.81 158
LRCX Lam Research 38.38 84.44 120
AMAT Applied Materials * 41.56 89.81 116
ASML ASM Lithography Holdings 44.82 72.63 62
TER Teradyne * 25.35 38.50 52
HELX Helix Technology 27.00 40.31 49
KLAC KLA Instruments * 58.00 79.19 37
NVLS Novellus Systems * 57.00 77.50 36
ASYT Asyst Technologies 29.00 38.75 34
CYMI Cymer 28.00 36.94 32
EGLS Electroglas 22.50 27.59 23
CMOS Credence Systems 41.50 45.63 10
NANO Nanometrics 11.44 12.06 5
MASK Align-Rite International 18.50 18.75 1
MTSN Mattson Technology 12.81 12.63 -1
KLIC Kulicke & Soffa Industries 32.06 29.44 -8
PRIA Pri Automation 43.88 40.13 -9
DPMI Dupont Photomasks 54.50 49.50 -9
GSNX Gasonics 19.94 16.75 -16
PLAB Photronics 25.25 20.94 -17
ATMI ATMI Inc 33.00 26.94 -18
COHU Cohu 23.82 18.88 -21
ETEC Etec System 49.88 38.19 -23
VECO Veeco Instruments 50.13 33.94 -32
WFR MEMC Electronic Materials 21.06 14.25 -32
IMSC Integrated Measurement Systems 19.25 12.19 -37
BRKS Brooks Automation 32.88 19.00 -42
UTEK Ultratech Stepper 29.25 15.88 -46
SMTL Semitool 18.50 9.97 -46
FSII FSI International 19.00 8.00 -58
SVGI Silicon Valley Group 30.88 12.50 -60
CFMT CFM Technologies 30.50 10.00 -67
TGAL Tegal 8.88 2.56 -71
SFAM SpeedFAM 49.25 11.06 -78
ASEC Aseco 16.75 2.50 -85
TOTALS 1076.39 1113.41 3
SOX-X Phili Semiconductor Index 347.01 555.83 60
* Component of 16 stock SOX-X Index |
