Paul and GM,
Re: "We all know that AMAT is an excellent price and trying to time it is very difficult."
I couldn't agree more that timing is very difficult, but I tend to disagree that AMAT is an excellent price at today's levels, if compared to historical price levels, AMAT is not a bargain.
Re: "...post-split price at $10.9375-$18.00. If my recall is correct
it was the mutual funds and big boys who were late then when they got into the stock taking us along to new heights as AMAT gained new heights. Don't we see the same happening again? What do you think?"
If the same thing were to happen again, we'd re-visit $10.9375 - $18.00, and the number of Mutual Funds owning AMAT would probably plunge from the current 389 (from today's IBD). Then after alot of weeping and bloodshed, the Mutual Funds would come back cautiously at first, then pile in. From looking at the 389 figure, I'd say we're more towards the "pile in" phase than the "blood in the streets" phase.
I should confess that I did raise some cash, but I haven't yet sold short any equipment stock. I am still holding EGLS and SVGI plus several non-equip stocks. I would love to hear a convincing bullish case as it relates to DRAMs, meaning why will the memory makers upgrade equipment in an environment where they cannot make money?
I can't make any sense of the rally the past couple of days. IMHO, it's probably a sucker rally, because nothing has changed in the last two days. It seems to me that we need applications for 64Mg in order to drive that market forward, and we need demand growth for chips, because we have too darn much capacity.
It almost seems to me that we didn't really have the down-cycle this time. We went down and then the countries/companies who shouldn't have spent money to stay in the game spent lots of money, thereby creating an even more over-capacitied situation. (This doesn't sound good to me.)
Regards,
Teri
PS. I am fully open to other view-points and in fact, would love to be convinced that it's safe to go back in the semi-equip waters heavily. |
