U.S. SEMIndex Shows A Small Gain for January While Nasdaq Down
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SAN JOSE, Calif., February 1, 2002 -- The U.S. SEMIndex, an equity index of 47 North American manufacturers of semiconductor equipment and materials, rose 4.96 percent during January to 194.16, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).
By comparison, the tech-laden NASDAQ Composite Index fell 2.03 percent during the same period, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) rose 5.88 per cent for the month.
"The SEMIndex year-to-date has been essentially flat as two competing forces have kept stocks in a relatively narrow trading range," said John Pitzer, industry analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston. "On one hand, it is clear that orders are approaching or are at a bottom, and historically that has been a strong buy signal for the group. On the other hand, utilization rates have never troughed at such low levels. However, valuations have never been this high at the bottom and the slope of the recovery this uncertain. We anticipate stocks will remain in a trading range with potential for an upward bias into fiscal first quarter reporting. Any significant movements in stocks will have to wait until the second half of 2002 and 2003 as visibility becomes more clear."
The Global SEMIndex, which closed up 3.16 percent for the month to 175.40, is a composite of 65 global SEMI members in the U.S., Japan and Europe.
The global SEMIndex is comprised of 66 public semiconductor equipment, materials and related services companies with individual market capitalizations of $50 million (U.S. equivalent) or more. SEMIndex is updated every 1 to 2 minutes throughout the global trading day and maintained on SEMI's investor website, www.semindex.org. |
