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Technology Stocks : ASTX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Goolie2 who wrote (232)	6/11/1999 9:42:00 PM
From: Will Lyons	Respond to of 275

Goolie I agree with your assessment completely. My remark about the charts reflects my preference for fundamentals and a suspicion that charts and TA are not very valluable tools. The annouoncement about the AMAT deal moved ASTX a bit as you mentioned, but a week later the stock burped to nearly 20 without any visiblle means of support. The burp seemed to be a delayed reaction and so I wondered why. That is all so please let us work together on this. I have followed ASTX for a number of years and have visited the company. It and ATMI are my favorites at this time. regards Will

To: Goolie2 who wrote (232)	6/18/1999 12:04:00 AM
From: Albert Mou	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275

Goolie, My interpretation would be - AMAT's order is classified as a just-in-time supply contract with large capital semi equipment firms. According to 10-Q, these types of orders are typically not included in the calculation of backlog. Therefore, don't be surprised if you are not to see a significant increase on 4th Qtr backlog. Their book-entry also reflects that they aren't booking these types of just-in-time supply contract into backlog. Notice last quarter's backlog was actually smaller than order booked (something like 26 mil. vs. 34 mil.) I was confused on that 26 millions backlog, which lasts only good for one quarter, incompatible to 1.6 book-to-bill ratio. My inference would be that actual order is larger than the backlog since they don't include the supply contract into backlog calculation. Also, AMAT seems to be a long-term partner with ASTX. So, this 3-years supply contract may be just a renewal to the old contract. I am optimistic enough to assume that this contract is larger than the previous contract amount. But I suppose that $145 million not a complete new addition. If you have time, maybe you can read into 10-K to see how big the portion AMAT contributed to the previous ASTX's sales. In any event, 1.6 book-to-bill ratio seems to be able to lift the bottom line to north of 20 cents in next quarter providing that manufacturing capacity not restrained. They placed new secondary IPO for 2.2 million before last quarter, which resulted in a squeaky clean balance sheet. Do you know any reason for this IPO?