Sam, Tower is a small Israeli foundry, they are planning to build a $1.3 B new foundry (with a lot of Government help which may run into political problems). For me it just too much of a gamble, their foundry, if the plans mature will be on line early in 2002, that is also when the chip sector may run into another cyclical problem, so they may have an elephant on their hands. Most of their products are into "niche" markets and they must be extremely lucky to survive and not follow ISSM another experiment in foundry. You need a critical mass to be in the foundry business, or else you cannot afford the torrential rate of foundry upgrading that technological advances require. Of course, if Toshiba pluck in a serious amount of money, not just a lousy $10 MM, things may change. I think that Toshiba is just looking to contract out low volume/low margins products out. Just my opinion, of course.
In edit, I got out of RMBS at 208 and change, a loss of close to $9, the third loss in a row, something is fishy and I think we may go much lower. The general rally is tepid, so I am reducing exposure back to about 60%, did this by selling VLNC at $19.75, VECO at $75 (that was a very nice trip, thank you) and CYMI at $49.875. Still looking for a wau out of CDTS and SCON. |
