Concerning the WSJ article of a few days ago:
As I said, I wrote the Journal a letter pointing out that they had made an error, stating that Cymer had issued an earnings warning. this morning I received this:
"Thank you for your inquiry about Cymer Inc. and the article on
chip-equipment makers. The story you are referring to originated with the Dow Jones News Service. They are comfortable with the story and stand by it, and we stand by them. If you have further concerns about this story, you can reach the News Service at 201/938-5400."
No so fast! I called the DJ and spoke with Christopher Grimes, the author of the article, and he said that he thought that the article had been updated, to read something like Cymer had issued some cautionary statements involving increased risk, correcting his statement about and "earnings warning." "Increased risk" is of course referring to the press release from September 8. He said that in light of this press release, even the original article was not fundamentally wrong. I pointed out to him that he was not basing his copy on timely information---that since Sept 8, there has been two analyst conferences (actually, by now I think there has been three), and Atkins went out of his way to say that the problem had been handled, and that they were not going to change their guidence to analysts. In short, "Nothing has changed" (I used this quote).
I also pointed out that the text from the DJ Oct 8 story had not yet been changed at all, that it still said that Cymer had issued a warning.
Mr. Grimes (who was pleasant and helpful, and whose articles in both DJ and in the WSJ I usually find helpful and informative), said he would talk to his editor about correcting the inaccuracy.
I just went through all this because I think it is important to remove this false information from the DJ data base. I use DJ quite a bit when researching a potential new stock purchase, and to many people, never missing a Q is a big thing.
Best Regards to all,
PD |
