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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials
AMAT 322.32-5.6%Jan 30 9:30 AM EST

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To: Gottfried who wrote (20647)6/22/1998 1:55:00 PM
From: Teri Skogerboe  Read Replies (1) of 70976
 
Gottfried, all

slightly dated (12 Jun 98) but maybe of interest... (Carl Johnson on the semi-equips)

techweb.com

Excerpt:
Many pundits have been chastised by the investing
public for their bearish proclamations. Those who were
bullish on the sector are now revising their expectations
lower. No one thought we would see weakening device
demand. Early this year forecasters projected a flat year
for capital spending. Today we hear from large
companies that bookings are running 40 percent below
plan. Forty percent lower and we are just entering the
down phase of device consumption!

In the most basic elements on the electronics business
we see some very disturbing signs. Last Tuesday,
Kemet [KMET] stated that it had cut more than 1,400
jobs because of weakness in demand for capacitors.
Orders and bookings are apparently off about 20
percent since the beginning of April. CEO David
Maguire said, "The rate of capacitor bookings and
shipments has fallen abruptly by about 20 percent from
levels at the beginning of the current quarter as OEM
and contract manufacturers and distributors correct
their inventories." Motorola [MOT], Amp [AMP],
Lattice Semiconductor [LSCC] and a host of others are
telling us that business is really in the tank.

Allow us to go back to the Kemet story for a moment
because we believe this story emphasizes the weakness
in final demand. The "Fab Rat," Paul Buddendorff,
described the news from the passive component
industry as, "A bright red light with sirens!" The passive
market is to the electronic industry like dirt is to plants
-- the foundation of most electronic components. They
aren't as flashy as CPUs, DRAMs or graphics chips,
they merely characterize the flow of electrical current on
a circuit board. In other words, a circuit board does not
function to specification without the use of passive
components.

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