Crosspost from another thread. There appear to be many who believe THE END IS NEAR for equipment cos. Here's someone's tkae with much more insight than myself, saying '99 should be spectacular:
To: Brian Kerecz (12762 )
From: Andrew Vance Friday, Mar 13 1998 2:14AM EST
Reply # of 12784
*AV*--I was listening to a DLJ conference call today that included some of the following companies: ASYT, UTEK, PRIA, DPMI, MTSN, IPEC and a few others (I cannot recall at this time). Their consensus is that 1999 will be a great year and 2000 will be gangbusters. They seem to be conceding the next few financial quarters due to the Whole SEA situation.
It seems like a great deal of stuff hinges on Hyundai since they were mentioned quite frequently. Besides selling Symbios, Hyundai sold their internal mask shop to DPMI and will have DPMI make its tooling. Hyundai still doesn't have its cash in hand to buy equipment. It also looks as if the equipment sector is reluctant to take too many risks in the SEA region these days.
The upside to all this is the conversion of some of the Memory lines over to Logic. This is mean that you will go from 2 layers of metal with interlevel dielectrics to 4-6 layers. This conversion will mean more metallization systems, more CVD systems with its specialty chemicals, more oxide and metal etchers, and a great need for improved cleaning, CMP, and defect detection.
With this said, the list I previously posted on some solid safe stocks, seems like the only safe havens. I would say that DPMI, AMAT, NVLS, ATMI, CYMI, ASYT, KLAC, PRIA and a few others may be the best chances of surviving the "street mayhem" that could occur as a result of the analysts and institutions using very short term thinking. The race for 4th generation DRAMs should also help the flow of products out of the equipment side. But make no mistake about it, should we tank, there will be a magnificient comeback in 1999-2000 as many companies have completely written off their Asian Backlog.
I would also like to go on record now that PRIA is looking to be a very good investment. Further investigation leads me to believe they have little Asian exposure relative to the exposure of other companies. They have also made some very nice acquisitons such as Equipe Technologies. They are putting together a very nice suite of factory automation tools and shop floor controls. I know I have not be "overly" enthusiastic in the past and just supportive of the questions asked of me. As of today PRIA is not only on radar but is on screen. In this case, I am coming onboard AFTER the interest has been established by other community members. I congratulate those that have brought this to our attention.
Andrew
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