re: I have the same questions, holding x000 shares for each.
?????
No insights, just reading the news.
KLIC warned in August, and TER just did. The backend is connected to the frontend, and the back end goes off the cliff first (shorter lead times):
Tuesday October 17 4:59 PM ET
Teradyne Shares Tumble on Profit Worries
BOSTON (Reuters) - Teradyne Inc. (NYSE:TER - news), the semiconductor industry's leading test equipment maker, said on Tuesday its third-quarter profits more than doubled, but its stock fell 27 percent as analysts worried about future results and the company's shift to less profitable business.
Teradyne said it earned $153.5 million, or 84 cents a diluted share, in the quarter, compared with $62.7 million, or 35 cents a diluted share, a year earlier. Analysts were looking for the company to earn 83 cents a share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.
Teradyne shares closed down $9-7/16 to $25, after hitting a 52-week low of $23-1/16 on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). Since hitting $110 at the end of April, Teradyne's stock price has declined steadily amid concerns the semiconductor industry has reached the peak of its boom cycle.
Analysts said Teradyne executives lowered their expectations for the fourth quarter during a Tuesday morning conference call.
Merrill Lynch analyst Brett Hodess wrote in a research note that Teradyne executives said they expected fourth quarter sales to drop as much as 4 percent to about $815 million.
``We estimate this will cause (earnings per share) to drop to (66 cents) rather than the (90 cents) we estimated,'' Hodess wrote in a research note. He also said Teradyne is shifting more of its business to non-semiconductor testing equipment, which is less profitable than chip equipment.
Third-quarter sales at Teradyne rose 71 percent, to $848 million from $497 million in the year-ago quarter, the company said.
Steven Pelayo, an analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, said customer orders for Teradyne's chip testing equipment are slowing. Pelayo said he lowered his estimate for Teradyne's earnings in 2000 to $3.03 a share from $3.25 a share. He said he also lowered his earnings expectation for Teradyne in 2001 to $3.42 a share from $4.50 a share.
``They've had a great ramp up this year,'' Pelayo said. ''However, now they're entering a digestion phase. Customers are digesting capacity and orders are slowing. You should see (future) earnings numbers come down quite a bit.''
Despite strong growth from Teradyne's non-semiconductor equipment business, Pelayo said the company's stock has historically traded on the performance of its chip divisions. |
