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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum
WDC 181.08+3.5%Dec 19 9:30 AM EST
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To: Stitch who wrote (5311)1/22/1999 7:23:00 PM
From: Mark Madden  Read Replies (2) of 9256
 
Stich,

Thank you for your comments.

I agree Asian consumption had little impact on oversupply. Asia's consumption used to be about 15% worldwide and is still about 15% worldwide. There could have been a small impact because companies expected the greatest growth in Asia. I think the financial crisis had the biggest impact. It may have closed the door on Micropolis causing them (or their creditors) to dump their inventory. It may have also caused Asian disk drive companies to trim their inventory to help their balance sheet and keep their credit lines open. The industry could have easily overcome these factors alone but they were additive to the other factors mentioned by you and others on the thread.

I read somewhere that the Book to Bill ratios were lagging indicators to the semiconductor industry. However, I thought it possible their orders may parallel computer orders and computer orders would instigate hard drive orders. I don't know what percentage of semiconductor go to the computer industry but I felt computers were probably their most volatile consumer. Actually, I'm just fishing for something to track that will give me early warning of DD demand shifts. Waiting for conference calls hasn't been doing it for me. Neither does listening to conflicting analyst reports.

I guess technically we could say this was the worst downturn for the disk drive industry in the past 100 years.(g) I hope it is followed by the biggest boom we've seen in 100 years.

Thank you for broadening the discussion.

Mark
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