I don't think anything anyone could say is going to change your mind, but it does seem like you are talking out of both sides of your mouth a bit. Your SIMO stock that you have been latched on to for years now is not doing well partly because WDC and MU are making more and more of their own controllers. What was SIMO down last Friday....7.4%????
Some of your comments from your SIMO board:
"Both WDC and now MU have created internal client SSD controllers. Those two NAND makers also buy SSD controllers from SIMO. If their internal client SSDs with their internal controllers do well, that's market share loss for SIMO."
You posted this modestly upbeat NAND forecast from Digitimes ten days ago:
"NAND flash prices are expected to fall less than 10% sequentially in the second quarter of 2019, and will likely stop falling later this year, according to industry sources.
Having fallen since 2018, NAND flash prices dropped further in the first quarter of 2019, said the sources. Samsung Electronics started cutting its NAND flash quotes in the first quarter aiming to clear out inventory, sending other NAND flash chipmakers following suit, the sources indicated.
Samsung is likely to continue its low-price strategy, but at a moderate pace, in the second quarter, the sources noted. Meanwhile, other NAND flash chipmakers intend to not follow suit this time given that prices are approaching their cash costs, the sources said.
NAND flash chipmakers have seen their inventory levels pile up since the second half of 2018, due mainly to a slowdown in demand for datacenter applications. Inventory build-ups already prompted Samsung to take the lead in cutting prices, the sources suggested.
Meanwhile, falling NAND flash prices are driving greater SSD adoption in PCs and other client devices, while the memory content per box for smartphones and other end devices continues to increase. End-market demand is expected to rise starting from the third quarter, bringing stability to NAND flash prices, the sources said."
So, I think your disappointment in SIMO's performance may be tainting your perception of the entire market and you have become bearish on all things NAND. Nobody is expecting a glowing report tonight. It isn't going to be good and I believe this has been priced in, but I could be wrong. Maybe we are entering the mature stage of the NAND market. A few observations of my own...
* I have a 75" 4K TV in my bonus room now and I was watching the F1 race yesterday thinking, '...this detail and clarity in the broadcast is really not necessary. Entertainment media could probably get by with regular 1080p resolution and nobody would notice.'
* Glancing at my desk stacked high with all sorts of paper files leads me to believe that the whole digital business to business thing is going to just be a passing fad. It just hasn't worked out the way everyone thought it would. Clearly a failure.
* I have four screens full of apps on my phone, but I am only using the ones on the first page regularly. I probably do not need 128GB of memory. For my next phone, I am definitely going to cut back on the memory. Apple is ripping people off on the memory upgrades anyway.
* I keep hearing about 'AI this and AI that', but seriously, when am I going to actually have a robot in my house that can do the crap I hate doing? Right now, I need to clean the french drains connected to the gutters, clean out the garage, remove the oil stains from the garage floor, and clean out the crawlspace. When am I going to have a robot that can do that?
* I'd love to have one of those self driving cars, but I heard they keep having accidents and it looks like that just isn't going to work. Not sure they needed any NAND anyway...
* I have a 512GB SSD on my Mac that stays full, but I just push stuff over to the regular HD or to the external drive when needed. Takes a little longer to fetch data, but heck, I wasn't doing anything else anyway except waiting on my new robot. My next Mac will not have an SSD at all, don't really need it as far as I am concerned.
So, I guess you have convinced me the storage and memory space is just a dead area to invest in and I am with you on your predictions. I appreciate the opportunity for the self reflection you prompted me to undertake.
UWG |
