Roberton Stephens fund manager Ron Elijah's take on Asian flu and semi equipment makers:
Does Asia have you concerned, Ron?
Elijah: I went through fear and depression because I own quite a bit in the semiconductor and semiconductor capital-equipment
areas, and they went down the most. But we called up the
companies that are in our portfolio--they all say they don't see
any downturn yet. Also, Asia is a manufacturing base for U.S.
companies, and most of the product made there is exported. These
businesses are in dollars, so in some ways U.S. companies are
actually going to benefit because the local labor force just got
cheaper.
Ron, what stocks excite you right now?
Elijah: The chipmaking-equipment stocks are a huge buying
opportunity. I called up Micron, which makes DRAMs. What are they going to do? They spent $600 million in capital equipment in 1997 and they're going to spend $900 million in 1998. They've got to, the equipment that was leading-edge two years ago is now behind, and if you don't upgrade, you're out of business. That
means good things for the equipment companies.
McNamee: Those stocks were also huge performers.
Doerr: They're all up 50% for the year--minimum.
Elijah: Yeah, they were up 100%. I own Applied Materials. I own Novellus. I own KLA-Tencor. I own Lam Research, which is working itself out. I own Asyst Technologies.
From Dec. 29 Fortune interview -- "Fortune picks the brains of four scary-smart tech investors"
(Others interviewed: Roger McNamee, John Doerr and Mary Meeker)
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