I thought this was interesting from Yahoo and Reuters. It parallels the discussion all of us have been having here. --John
biz.yahoo.com
Thursday October 16 2:41 PM EDT
Semi equipment makers fall after monthly report
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Shares of Applied Materials Inc (AMAT), KLA-Tencor Corp (KLAC), Novellus Systems Inc (NVLS) and other semiconductor equipment makers fell after a monthly report on orders was down from August.
Investors are also nervous about semiconductor equipment stocks, after recent third quarter earnings disappointments by the major customers of equipment makers, semiconductor firms such as Intel Corp (INTC) and LSI Logic (LSI).
But analysts pointed out that September is historically one of the slowest months for capital equipment and in October, order rates should show sequential growth again.
Earlier on Thursday, the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) group said that the chip equipment industry posted a book-to-bill ratio of 1.07 for the month of September, down from a revised August figure of 1.09.
A book-to-bill ratio of 1.07 means that $107 in orders were received for each $100 worth of products shipped. Book-to-bill ratios are used by the industry as monthy indicators of demand.
''It's misleading because even though it was down, you need to realize that September has always been the trough month for the book-to-bill,'' said Min Pang, a Cowen & Co analyst.
''If history is anything to go by, then October should be up from September,'' Pang said.
Shares of Applied Materials, the leading semiconductor equipment maker, were down 3-15/16 to 45-1/8 in heavy trading. KLA-Tencor was off 4 to 62-07/16 and Novellus Systems was down 2-7/8 to 58-1/2. Lam Research Corp (LRCX) was off 5/8 to 41-7/8. These companies comprise what is called the ''front-end'' segment of the book-to-bill, which is made up of the wafer processing equipment makers.
The book-to-bill for these wafer processing equipment firms was 1.02 for September, down sharply from 1.08 in August. |
