Darfot, I believe that you generalize too much about technology.
I will stack LLTC's track record and 70% non-commodity gross margins up against any company you can name, in one of the most cyclical industries around. AT 70% G.M. you can recover CAPEX in one big hurry. Besides the trend in the semiconductor industry is following that in the electronics products industry generally to outsource manufacturing, leaving these companies with a non-capital intensive business focusing on R&D, product development, and selling.
Of course, technology business generally is cyclical. Who thought it wasn't? Furthermore, if your investment criterion is a non-cyclical business, you won't have much to invest in. (Don't mention drugs, which require a couple hundred million $$$ of investment to - maybe - bring a drug to market.) In my opinion, if you think that the long term record of technology is that of a non-growth industry, you are letting the present - resulting from vast overbuilding in the late 90's because of Y2K and excessive capital raised on Wall Street and put into marginal projects/companies - blind you to the past, and the future. Furthermore, there are always some sectors of technology that are doing fine - like sales of FPD's. |
