Semi Equipment Book-to-Bill : SEMI just released its July book-to-bill ratio of 0.67....A
book-to-bill of 0.67 means that $67 worth of new orders were received for every $100 of product
shipped for the month. Briefing.com has gathered estimates from six brokerage firms and has calculated
a mean estimate of 0.60 for July from 0.56 (revised) in June. While this is higher than expected, keep in
mind that shipments fell 12% which accounts for part of the upside. (The equation is book-to-bill =
bookings/shipments) The nugget in the report is that bookings were higher than expected. July
bookings, at $764.2 mln, increased 5% sequentially but were sharply lower than the $2.9 bln in July
2000. The 5% increase was the highest sequential increase in some time, and better than most thought.
For example, CSFB was predicting a 3% sequential decline. The decent increase in bookings at least
provides some indication that capital equipment orders may have reached bottom. However, remember
this is a a lagging indicator, not a leading one. In fact, CSFB argues the data are analytically
insignificant....Bottom line, this was a moderately positive report -- better than most thought but not a
clear home run....Reactions vs 4pm close: Applied Materials (AMAT +0.69), Novellus (NVLS +1.08),
KLA-Tencor (KLAC -0.15). -- Robert J. Reid, Briefing.com |
