Posting just a bit today. Apparently one of my posts to Mr. Furman did not make it on the board - must be a limit on posts or something....
Gottfried, I appreciate the explanation for your analyst upgrade/downgrade chart.
Someone said that I was posting to defend the analysts. Maybe it sounded like that but that was not my intent. I've said, time and time again, there are good analysts and there are bad. Most have access to a tremendous amount of information - more than you can find in the public domain (web). That does not mean they are good at interpeting the data. Again, some are good, some are bad.
I don't think I've disagreed with the fact that "semiconductor" sales, as measured by the SIA, are still hovering near all time highs and I don't think I have tried to use the trends in capital equipment bookings to disprove that fact. Please correct me if that is the case.
I believe what I have said is that the "growth rate" of semiconductor sales has been slowing and that has implications for the food chain. This trend has been going on for a number of years.
I've been posting some thoughts on the first page of my site and in some of the blogs about the change in the capital spending ratio for a while. A few of these posts are germane to the discussion here. They are right at this link, for all to view: infras.com
On a related note, I have, once again, read some posts about the confusion between semiconductor sales and IC sales. I believe we discussed this a while back. If I recall correctly it was in regards to a forecast from IC Insights.
There is a difference between semiconductor sales and IC sales. IC sales are sales of Monolithic Integrated Circuits. That's the number I track. It is the lower number and I find it much more relevant in measuring capital spending ratios for advanced technology (300mm, sub-130nm, etc, etc).
Why the difference? To quote my past explanation, IC Insights, and for that matter IC Knowledge and others, track the "Numbers that exclude diodes, small signal transistors, power transistors, rectifiers, thyristors, sensors, optoelectronics and a number of different discretes."
Thanks again for the explanation.
Carl
|
