WR Hambrecht sees Jan as time to buy chip equip. stocks (ADEX, KLAC, NANO, RTEC, SMTL, ICOS, LRCX) By Tomi Kilgore
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- WR Hambrecht expects semiconductor equipment stocks to start rallying within the next 1 or 2 months in response to signs of an industry rebound. Analyst Gerald Fleming thinks front-end orders may decline as much as 30 percent over the next 3 months but thinks this will represent the cyclical trough in the current downturn. "If recent timing metrics were to hold, we believe the time to buy these stocks would be in the month of January," Fleming said in a note to clients. "Our optimism is based on the view that semiconductor companies did not engage in a spending binge in 2004 as in many previous upturns and advanced capacity remains tight." Among the chip equipment makers that Fleming rates "buy," ADE Corp. (ADEX) rose 19 cents to $18.24, KLA-Tencor (KLAC) slipped 20 cents to $45.32, Nanometrics (NANO) ticked up a penny to $16.26, Rudolph Technologies (RTEC) slipped 21 cents to $16.07, Semitool (SMTL) lost 16 cents to $9.17, ICOS Vision (ICOS) gave up 14 cents to $23.98 and Lam Research (LRCX) was down 24 cents at $26.12.
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