Chip companies to shine this quarter amid boom times
By Therese Poletti SAN FRANCISCO, March 29 (Reuters)
Forget about investing in money-losing dot-com companies, the $149 billion worldwide semiconductor industry is on a roll.
The semiconductor business, known for its boom-to-bust cycles, is in full recovery from its most recent three-year downturn, which also happened to be the industry's longest.
Factories are humming again at almost full capacity, supplies are getting tight and chip stocks have been skyrocketing faster than some newly-public dot-coms.
But unlike profit-averse Internet companies, chip companies are making money and as earnings this quarter will show, many U.S. chip companies could report better-than-expected results.
"They will all do well, they will all have upside surprises, their stocks will all rise, it's a semiconductor up-cycle," said Dan Niles, an analyst at Robertson Stephens. "Most of my companies have real earnings and the multiples - relative to other spaces - are reasonable."
Indeed, since the beginning of the year, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index <.SOXX> has soared about 82 percent, in part fueled by huge surges in networking and communications chip companies.
Many chip companies have been trading near or at their 52-week highs, before losing some recent gains this week.
Analysts and fund managers said they expect chip stocks to continue to climb, despite declines in some tech stocks this week, as strong earnings will further buoy a bullish outlook.
"I think earnings results and the outlooks will be strong enough to drive these stocks higher as we go into the second quarter," said Mark Edelstone, a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst. "I am pretty optimistic about how these stocks will trade going into summer. Business is great."
One of the first companies to report next month will be Advanced Micro Devices Inc. <AMD.N>, Intel Corp.'s biggest rival in PC microprocessors, and now the comeback kid of the chip business. |
