Stock upgraded as Chartered Semi beats forecasts
By Doreen Siow and Eric Auchard
Friday April 19, 12:02 PM
sg.news.yahoo.com
SINGAPORE/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's third-largest contract maker of computer chips, posted a first-quarter loss narrower than market estimates, prompting some analysts to upgrade the stock on Friday.
The Singapore-based firm said its outlook had improved significantly for the rest of 2002, amid a recovery in chip markets. It said second-quarter revenues were expected to grow faster, while losses would narrow more than previously expected and that it was boosting its capital spending plans.
"We believe what we are seeing is the beginning of a classic semiconductor recovery and one that has the potential to be quite strong no matter how hard hit the industry was last year," President and Chief Executive Barry Waite said in a conference call.
Chartered shares were firmer by mid morning in Singapore after a weak start, rising four cents to S$4.92 by 0325 GMT, with more than five million shares changing hands.
The company reported for the quarter ending March 31 a net loss of $128.37 million, or 93 cents per diluted American Depositary Share (ADS), compared with a loss of 22 cents per share in the first quarter of 2001.
"The results were better than management's guidance, but not out of line with the high end of market estimates of losses of $125-$140 (million)," said Gregory Yap, analyst at Singapore's OCBC Research, in a morning note.
Yap said he planned to upgrade Chartered to "outperform" from "market perform". |
