Check out the Monday edition of IBD for a very bearish view of the DRAM business.
investors.com
Makers of memory chips, meantime, face their own challenges. Thanks to a glut, dynamic random- access memory, or DRAM, chips have been selling at or near cost since late '96, says Jim Handy, analyst at Dataquest Inc. in San Jose, Calif.
The market was worth about $22 billion last year, down 14.5% from '96, Handy says. And he sees no relief for some time.
''There won't be a shortage until the year 2000,'' he said.
The Asian economic flu could make matters worse. Most DRAM chips are manufactured in Japan and Korea. So far, says Handy, Korean companies have gone along with prices set in Japan.
But shifts in exchange rates could allow them to sell products for much less. The fortunes of U.S. manufacturers, such as Boise, Idaho-based Micron and Dallas' Texas Instruments, hang in the balance.
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