The past week has seen a good deal of the bad news confirmed. There were many quarterly earnings announcements and most of them were worse than the consensus estimates. Maybe we are at that point when most of the bad news is being confirmed. If we get all of the bad news on the table, the "market" might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Just a few comments on Mattson. As post 1900 shows, Mattson had a high price of $31.13 in 1995, $16 in 1997, and last Friday it closed at $6.19, down 6 percent for the week. Here is a stock that you have to ask the question, "Is it going to make it over the long haul?"
If you look at the history of the stock, everything was going quite well through the second quarter of 1996 when its quarterly earnings were announced at $0.23 per share. The trailing 12 months earnings were $0.89 per share. By June 96, however, the stock price had already come down from its 1995 high to around $11 to $12 per share. The next six quarters through the end of 1997 show a net gain of $0.06 per share. I checked 2 databases today to find out what the consensus estimates were for the first quarter 1998 closing at the end of March. Nelson's database gives $0.08 and Zack's gives $-0.06. In this case, an estimate from Mattson, the company itself, was also given on Monday, 16 March. They stated the estimated loss would be from $-0.08 to $-0.12 for the quarter. They also stated Q2 earnings would be down from previous forecasts. This is shown at:
fnews.yahoo.com
From all of this I guess I have 2 points to make:
1. The analysts have not updated their estimates based on Mattson inputs.
2. By the time the second quarter (June) of 1998 closes for Mattson, a 2 year period ends when no profits have been made.
Joe, as you pointed out, at least one newsletter recommended a "buy" on Mattson at or near its high of $15 to $16 per share in 1997. Now it is at $6+ with "lossy" quarters coming up. Not a very good scenario. It may be quite awhile, if ever, before Mattson gets back to $15 to $16 per share. |
