Cree ($34 lose) Reports Eighteen Consecutive Quarters of Profitability
Earnings Per Share Increased 125 Percent; Product Revenue Rose 70 Percent
biz.yahoo.com
"CREE, Inc. STRONG BUY
CREE: MIXED OUTLOOK WITH SURPRISE RAMP OF ULTRA BRIGHT LED CHIP
CREE | $31.44 | NASD
Prudential:
Cree reported EPS of $0.18, surpassing our $0.17 expectation and Street consensus. Revenue increased 10.2% sequentially to $41.5 million.
While near-term outlook is quite good, June quarter visibility is not as good by historical standards due to Cree not being capacity strained and a possible slowdown in end demand in our opinion
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Cree Shares Sink After Short-Sell Recommendation
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of semiconductor maker Cree Inc. (NasdaqNM:CREE - news) fell nearly 12 percent in afternoon trade on Tuesday after a prominent researcher predicted the company's primary product, a light-emitting device, would fall in price.
Mark Roberts, the director of research at Off Wall Street Consulting Group, which recommends stocks that investors should sell short in order to profit from price drops, said in the Jan. 15 issue of the financial news weekly Barron's that Cree's product would become priced like a commodity, hurting the company's profit margins.
Roberts said the price declines could send Cree's stock to $20 from Friday's closing price of $32-3/16. Shares of Cree were down $3-13/16 to $28-3/8 in afternoon trade on the Nasdaq stock market.
Cree is one of the top makers of high-brightness light-emitting devices, or LEDs, that illuminate cell phone screens, car dashboards, signs and other products.
Roberts' prediction faced vehement criticism from some analysts, who said Cree remains in a growing industry and is well in control of prices.
``They are choosing when they drop the price. It's not the market,'' said Dale Pfau, an analyst with CIBC World Markets.
John Lau, a semiconductor analyst with Wit Soundview, said Cree has 80 percent of its backlog booked for the next two quarters.
``There are few semiconductor companies that can actually boast an 80 percent backlog cover,'' Lau said. ``We believe the market continues to grow at a very strong rate.''
Barron's quoted Cindy Merrell, Cree's chief financial officer, as saying Roberts' criticism was ``very misleading.'' |
