What a night ! It took me 4 hours to chew this "10~15%" Q1_98 revenue decrease, given the fact that the A-team asked to leave the prediction of laser sales to the "experts" and "sequential revenue growth" was expected for the next two quarters. After all, it seems to me Fleckstein knew more than Akins ! And the "experts" were wrong.
Shame on you, Akins. Hope you have learned your lesson. And shame on fools like me too. I should not have blindly believed the CEO. The market knows more than the company CEO !
Lessons being learned ? Indeed. Akins seems going toward the other extreme this time. His Q1_98 revenue drop of 10%~15% is too conservative this time, in my view. I am betting the drop will be no more than 10%. I say this because,
1). Q4 revenue at $59 with Sept. 31 backlog at $117, which meant 50% of backlog was realized. If Cymer receives 50% of the current $108 backlog during next quarter, he should have $54 in Q1_98 revenue, which is only 9.2% drop.
2). The jump in receivables seems to me they have sold a few more bulbs than they have claimed for Q4_97. They may be "allocating" something for late days.
Going foward, surprises may be possible for Q1.
Still worried or disappointed ? You bet, they essentially forcasted further decline of margins in Q1_98 and beyond when they said $0.15 per share less next quarter. The revenue drop won't explain it all. It must be the expenses ! Q4_97 marging has been lower than what I personally expected, in spite of the low tax rate (25%). And capital spending alone won't explain either because capital is depreciated over mulriple years, not expensed in a single quarter. This margin thing is the real bad news in the report, no wonder an aggressive buy back program which I like too at this point of time.
Let's see what the analysts are going to say tomorrow or in the next few days. They won't downgrade those "Hold" to "sell" like Adams Harkness ???? Hope they will say something at least, good or bad or reiterate what they said before. I would hate silence.
The key to this stock now is what will happen after April 1, 98 - the fool's day. Anybody has a crystal ball that can see that far ?
Good luck to all !
BTW, Congratulations to Bob and Zeev for your earnings estimate right on target and congratulations to Curly. Curly, you shouted loud enough, even the deaf Akins heard of you. Wish he had heard of other people saying the wolf was coming, though, and stayed away from those unprecendented "Sequential growth", "expert-like" estimate. |
