Some comments from Smith Barney:
<<INDUSTRY: Smith Barney Previews Q1 for Semiconductors
Ridgeland, MS, APR 08, 2004 (EventX/Knobias.com via COMTEX) -- Smith Barney commented that Q1 earnings for semiconductors will most likely be roses with a few thorns added to the mix. Roses include strong commodity pricing (e.g., memory and discretes) and healthy high-performance analog, Comm IC and PLD demand. Thorns include the PC supply chain and some wireless wrinkles. They think many companies will likely report and guide better than consensus including FCS, CY, IRF, IDTI, MXIM and XLNX. In contrast, we feel expectations may be curtailed for AGR.A and INTC and possibly no upside for TXN.
The largest issue for most chip investors remains the reconciliation of chip demand strength with somewhat mediocre hardware demand. Thus, chip stocks are likely to respond to hardware data points with greater emphasis than individual chip company reports. Ideally, negative hardware news (e.g., Nokia and Seagate) is getting out of the way so better reports will help lift the chip group during regular earnings season.>> |
