Hi Bear,
I've got my GTC orders just waiting in the depths of price.
Cohu has announced a change of guidance the day before these future investor presentations on the past:
Cohu to Present at Upcoming Investor Conferences
POWAY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2024-- Cohu, Inc. (NASDAQ: COHU), a global supplier of equipment and services optimizing semiconductor manufacturing yield and productivity, today announced that management will participate at the following investor conferences:
B. Riley Securities 24th Annual Institutional Investor Conference
Location: Beverly Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills, CA
May 23, 2024
TD Cowen 52nd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference
Location: Lotte Palace Hotel, New York, NY
May 29, 2024
Stifel 2024 Cross Sector Insight Conference
Location: InterContinental Boston, MA
June 4, 2024
Baird 2024 Global Consumer, Technology & Services Conference
Location: InterContinental New York Barclay, NY
June 5, 2024
These need to be watched.
If Cohu sees orders coming in strong with the first two months of the quarter under their belt, they may issue revised upward guidance. It has happened that way before.
That being said, I believe they would only do that if they had expended all the allotted cash to be utilized for stock buybacks.
This downturn has been useful in declining the price and Cohu has been very opportunistic in buying low so far.
I have GTC stink bids going down to $25.25 with 25 cent increments.
If they all trigger I'll have a nice round lot position and I'm not buying anymore Cohu!
Absolutely promise!
What a long strange trip it has been!
I've been completely in and out of Cohu three different times. My first shares ever bought were in 1978, when the CEO was Jack Barnes.
Mr Barnes bought an unheard company that made heat chambers to duplicate the temperature of a new chip called a CPU. There was a small chip maker that wanted a heating chamber that would heat all the chips equally so a quality control test would be uniform. At that time Cohu made instrumentation for Convair airplanes airplanes. The small upstart company that they made heat chambers for was called INTEL!
The need for a test handler that could pick up the chip (with metal connectors sticking out of all four sides) resulted in a pick and place capability. The chips were shipped to cohu in trays, taken from the tray to a boat (which had indentations that nested the chips) and then taken inside a TER test machine and tested. After each chips performance was determined they were sorted in holding trays. The highest performers were labeled by a megahertz number. The higher the number the higher the price for the chip.
Back then Cohu had sales of over one million dollars. In the peak of the first PC chip cycles they doubled revenue to over 200 million and then began having dividend increa0ses and two two for one splits in the late 1990's.
By then Cohu had gone from a heating chamber to a cooling chamber as the testing had become so much faster and stronger that chips needed cooling instead of heating. Cohu has come a long way and reengineered itself several times. Now they have globally rolled up the test handler business (except Advantest) and now are building MEMS testers and wafer inspection equipment.
They do not get the glamour of chip makers , but they do control the cost of test along with Teradyne as well.
One of their strengths that carried them all these years was their factory in the Philippines. It is located at the Clark AirForce Base. A facility that goes back to the making of Convair instrumentation.
To see them aspire to a revenue of one Billion Dollars is a tribute to their steady and consistent long term growth.
In the early years I almost had a 1% of the outstanding shares. It was the only growth stock that was debt free I could find. I just kept buying them on dips and they were my only holding. From 95 to early 2000 I got hooked on margin. Several huge dips gave me modest margin calls and I got burned a bit, but held the position.. With the Dot.Com chip blowoff top, I sold out early and paid off a 1.2 million dollar margin account.
I had sold out early at 40 and the stock went to $62.75 in 2000.
Never looked back, and began buying back very early starting at 20.00 as price went to 7. I just kept on averaging down.
That run netted 2.2 million and I never got back in margin again.
After selling out completely in late 1999 it was like I needed to detox from the adrenalin rush of margin.
Today it is the only stock I own that doesn't pay a dividend. Cohu has been been very good to me over the long run - I still miss the dividend, but they have continued with some aggressive growth.
Cohu always has a dip before a big run up.
Buy the dip and hold with confidence.
This winner is back to being debt free - I love that about COHU!
HOLD WITH CONFIDENCE!
I have been a believer of their excellence for decades as one thing I'm sure of: OUR FUTURE IS DESTINED TO HAVE MORE CHIPS!
Bob |
