Intel, T.I. mixed ahead of earnings
By Janet Haney, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 1:14 PM ET Apr 17, 2001
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - Most semiconductor stocks fell Tuesday as investors looked ahead to quarterly results due out later in the day from industry leaders such as Intel and Texas Instruments.
"The forthcoming earnings season will mark the end of one of the worst quarters in the history of the semiconductor industry," Bear Stearns analyst Charles Boucher commented in a statement.
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The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX: news, msgs, alerts) was lower by 1.1 percent to 570.33. The sector gauge, which tracks the movement of 16 chip and chip-equipment stocks, hit a low of 453.85 on April 4.
A series of chip related companies are slated to offer their quarterly numbers this week, as analysts and investors get set to tune into any possible forward-looking forecasts.
"With an unprecedented lack of visibility, we expect companies to provide very cautious guidance for the June quarter, although the trend should be toward a smaller sequential decline than the March quarter," Boucher remarked.
Intel (INTC: news, msgs, alerts) , which reports after the closing the bell today, said it would fall short of its first-quarter sales projections and has cut 5,000 jobs to pare costs.
The First Call/Thomson Financial consensus estimate on Intel's profit is 15 cents a share on sales of $6.59 billion. In recent action, Intel shares fell 36 cents to $25.95.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD: news, msgs, alerts) shares fell 31 cents to $23.15. AMD, due to report results Wednesday, is in the minority of leading chip companies that hasn't issued any first-quarter warnings.
Texas Instruments (TXN: news, msgs, alerts) is expected to report a first-quarter profit of 16 cents a share on sales of $2.13 billion. Its stock gained 52 cents to $33.53.
Shares of Teradyne (TER: news, msgs, alerts) , a maker of chip-manufacturing equipment, gained ground ahead of its quarterly report, also due after the market closes. Its shares slipped by 29 cents to $33.21.
Elsewhere, a rating downgrade for shares of Xilinx (XLNX: news, msgs, alerts) did nothing to affect the stock, which gained 1 percent to $40.65. ABN Amro lowered its outlook on the maker of programmable logic device chips to a "hold," citing the "very accommodating posture it has apparently taken with a top customer like Cisco."
Xilinx is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter results on April 19.
Janet Haney is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco |
