Robert, it has hung in there pretty well in spite of what's happening.
Carl makes some good points and deserves a Dinstiguished Flying Cross for honor and valor under fire. In theory, there has to be some point where the reduction in CAPX industrywide (relative to trend) and the marginal players exiting does kick in. My guess would be that some people thought the stabilization Dec-Jan was it. It wasn't it. Or maybe part of it was, but it was offset by other factors.
My theory continues to be that the stabilization during that period was largely tied to MU resolving their "bottleneck" issues.
Now if that's true, here you have a situation where one of the most "efficient" players cannot increase production, but in spite of their stance being that its the "inefficient" players screwing up the market, when the market is left to them, prices stabilize (although, it was during a period of strong demand).
Now the "efficient" player comes back on like gangbusters and prices tank. The idea that Siemens of all players is responisble for this down leg is ludicrous. They were the ones who killed their UK project at the same time that MU was expanding it own fab capacity by "buying" TI's DRAM ops.
So when Appleton rants about other players acting "recklessly", it would be nice to whoever is interviewing him to ask him about his company's own production increases.
I think I lost my original train of thought (not that much was coming along the tracks anyway), but...
Sorry, time for the X-Files! <g>
Good trading,
Tom |
