No, it's not just a "perception" problem. Yes, people are scared, and the scared money will stay on the sidelines until it is reassured, but........there are good solid real reasons to be scared.
Intel finding out that demand is much less than expected, for all the various chips they make, that isn't perception.
Vast amounts of capital squandered in telecom buildouts, to sell services that nobody wants to buy (Iridium, Globalstar, many others), that's not a perception problem.
Investors figuring out that Amazon's business plan is to ramp sales by selling commodities at below cost, this is not just a perception problem.
Yes, it will end sometime. I don't believe in the L-shaped downturn. Last summer and fall, I was hoping for a V-shaped downturn, and my optimism hurt me badly. The news of the last couple of months indicates that business conditions across all tech catagories continues to markedly deteriorate, even compared to last December. So I'm now thinking we get the U-shaped downturn, with conditions not bottoming till late 2001, or 2002. I could easily be wrong, of course, and I'll change my mind (and my investing) if I see evidence of a bottom. I'll admit that a lot of my wariness, is because of the falling knifes I've caught in the last 8 months. |
