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Technology Stocks : FSII - The Worst is Over? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Dancy who wrote (2484)	6/10/1999 11:18:00 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2754

Joe, This goes along with a couple of articles I have seen the last few days that says there might be a chip shortage in the future. I don't think the timing on the 300 mm wafers is such as to alleviate short term shortage, but it should help in the long run. It looks like the recovery is finally on its way. It has been a long dry spell!! FSII really made another nice move today. I guess the market likes the fact they have sold their Chemical Management Division which was announced after close of business yesterday. There was another 8 percent gain today with good volume. The chart action hasn't looked this good since last December. The last 2 days the stock is up 20 percent - I can use a little more of that!! This month marks my 3 year anniversary in holding this stock. I bought it in June of 1996 for $13 because, among other things, its growth rate was touted as being 35 percent per year. I was going to be a good "buy and hold" investor and watch the money "roll in". Well, now I think the time is here - it may still be awhile, but I think we are headed for $13 and higher. Anybody like to predict where we will be at year end? I will take the first guess and say $26. Don W.

To: Joe Dancy who wrote (2484)	6/13/1999 4:56:00 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2754

Hi Joe, Good to hear from you on the thread again. You have been absent for quite awhile. I can understand the reason, however, since you obviously had to spend a lot of time getting your new website up and running - audioinvestor.com Let me congratulate you on your effort. I think it has been a great addition in helping the individual investor. It continues to grow and get better all the time. I particularly appreciate the interviews with the CEOs of the technology companies - keep them coming!!! I also know you have had FSII in your "model portfolio", in the Lone Start Growth Investor, for almost as long as the 3 years I have owned the stock. I thought the news release on Friday, in the URL below, was very provocative - certainly from the point of view of FSII's future. Just below the URL listing the entire article, I copied the part attributed to Mark FitzGerald, Merrill's semiconductor-equipment analyst. As you can read, he gives high marks to AMAT, NVLS and KLAC while he names the also-rans as LRCX, MTSN and FSII. Since I don't work in the semi-equip business area, I get my impressions through the written word from the sources I can find - tech news, SI posts, SEC filings, etc. The present management has been there for some time and made them successful in the past. Have they lost the "golden touch"? It is probably true they over-extended at the wrong time, just prior to the "Asian Crisis", but in a business upturn which we appear to be entering, that means they have capacity in place to respond to the upturn in orders - or are we saying FSII is not going to see that much of an upturn in orders?? fnews.yahoo.com <<"This idea that everybody is going to recover is dead wrong," said FitzGerald. "There are a whole host of companies that will not be able to reproduce their profitability of the last up cycle," which lasted roughly from 1990 to 1998. "We've seen a run-up in orders, but we've yet to see who will be profitable." Winners, said FitzGerald, will be the equipment companies with unique products, like Applied Materials (Nasdaq:AMAT - news) , Novellus Systems (Nasdaq:NVLS - news) and KLA-Tencor (Nasdaq:KLAC - news) , each of which is up nearly threefold from its 52-week low. But the companies FitzGerald pegged as also-rans -- Lam Research (Nasdaq:LRCX - news) , Mattson Technology (Nasdaq:MTSN - news) and FSI International (Nasdaq:FSII - news) -- are up off their lows in similar fashion. Because each faces tough competitive issues, FitzGerald said he doesn't see the latter group as keepers, especially because cost-conscious Intel (Nasdaq:INTC - news) won't carry into the next decade the purchasing power it had in the 1990s.>> Your thoughts on the entire situation would be most welcome. Also, how about an interview with Joel Elftmann, Chairman and CEO, and also according to FSII's web-site, he is "Acting Chief Business Development Officer". It would be great to hear from him on the future outlook for FSII, particularly since he wears 2 hats, CEO and New Business. Any comments, or interviews with FSII personnel, would be most appreciated. Best Regards, Don W.