Is it just me or do many feel ZDNet and a few others of its ilk should be named the luddite times. I mean they seem always to be *negative* on tech. Smells like a hedge fund with its own web page and reporters to me. Start a magazine rating restaurants, then open your own give it 'five forks up' and complain everyone else in town's sauce sucks.
Anyway, complaint here is the VERY misleading title of story (which title appears on the news link). This is from earlier but still out here today via PRI story.) To use a super charged word like 'neutral' which has a very specific meaning for analysts in the title of a story in which even the anal-yst who sees the "business deteriorating" gives a BUY recommendation is misleading. Plus, reporter says reaction was lukewarm (my bolding) then goes on to report on three specific examples: all buy ratings.
November 16, 2000 11:13am
Applied Materials gets neutral analyst reactions
By Anand Ablack, Special to ZDII ZDII
Despite topping analyst estimates for its fourth quarter, Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT) received lukewarm ratings from analysts.
Shares of the chip equipment giant rose 0.63 to 43.38.
In the fourth quarter, Applied Materials earned $664 million, or 77 cents a share, on sales of $2.92 billion, topping analyst earnings estimates by a penny. Sales were up 81 percent from the year-ago period, which saw the company earn $303 million, or 37 cents a share, on sales of $1.61 billion.
For the fiscal year, Applied Materials took in $2.05 billion, or $2.39 a share, on sales of $9.56 billion up from the $757 million, or 92 cents a share, earned on sales of $5.1 billion in fiscal 1999.
Analyst reaction was lukewarm.
Analyst M. Ali Irani at CIBC World Markets reiterated his "buy" rating.
Brett A. Hodess at Merrill Lynch reiterated near-term "accumulate," and kept a long-term rating of "buy." The target price was cut to $55 from $76 per share.
Wit SoundView analyst Michael O'Brien gave the company a "buy" rating, citing concerns over weakened demand. "As we look into the chip-end markets (computers, communication and consumers), we see demand... less robust than we would have anticipated and inventory building up," O'Brien wrote in a report. While maintaining year-over-year growth in revenues and earnings of 31 percent, the analyst noted that he believes that a "substantial amount" of risk exists.
He reiterated his conviction that the fundamentals of Applied Material's business were "deteriorating".
O'Brien set the share price target for the company at $42.75 and sees earnings for fiscal 2001 of $3.26. |
