Boucher - "Have faith!"
Useful insight.
Hope he gets paid a ton.
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Bear Stearns Technology Conference – Summary of Day One
Charles F. Boucher - Semiconductors
We had 10 semiconductor companies present on the first day of the 13th Annual Bear Stearns Technology Conference – Altera, Agere, Triquint, Intel, Lattice, Intersil, Samsung, Vishay, Cypress, and ICS. All of the companies reaffirmed June quarter guidance, but offered little commentary on the extended outlook. Growth in the first half of the year is generally attributed to customers increasing orders after completing inventory reduction with little improvement in end market demand. Industry fundamentals are generally improving – bookings backlog pricing inventories – but visibility remains limited with a heavy turns bookings component. Lead times haven’t started to extend yet, but it appears that the supply pipeline is starting to get depleted, which could lead to longer lead times later in the year.
Investor sentiment remains strongly negative and skeptical. We think the Street is overly negative on the prognosis for technology spending, but can offer no evidence of an impending improvement. However, we believe stocks are very close to a bottom, and we think investors should start to buy chip stocks at current levels in front of a potential recovery later in the year. |
