Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : The Naked Truth - Big Kahuna a Myth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wlheatmoon who wrote (47626)	6/17/1999 7:42:00 AM
From: wlheatmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86076

For Mythster's reading pleasure. John, see #4..our next target...-g- Semis Steal the Show (from Street.com) By James J. Cramer 6/16/99 Holy cow! A theme! We have a theme. Something that can transcend CPIs and Greenspan speeches and wage pressures. Something to buy again! Yippee! Yep, that's how the institutional money managers out there are thinking right now about the semiconductors. No matter that it has been going on for weeks upon weeks now, when it comes to themes, money managers think it is never too late to join the party. We have seen this pattern before. Large-cap growth was a prevailing theme until Dell (DELL:Nasdaq) and Pfizer (PFE:NYSE) kiboshed it. (Doesn't mean they can't come back, so please don't email me. Just history we are speaking about now.) Oil service prevailed for about two years before those stocks got so high and there were so many new issues that it got old and sated -- and, well, bad. And, of course, the Net was a theme before it got poleaxed by a plethora of dot-coms, which wiped away the precious scarcity value of the Net offerings. (Again, don't email me -- it can come back. Blah, blah, blah.) But right now the semis have stolen the show. They've done it by having a whole host of positive factors coalesce. So let's go over what forms a theme and why it will be impervious to the CPI, no matter how crummy it is (and why this group is nirvana if the number is good). 1.Asia came back. Semis were a huge Asian play to begin with. Oh, we didn't want to admit that, but this group took its hits in '97 when Asia collapsed, and now it can be played in tandem with a reversal of Asian fortunes. 2.Lots of Net activities need faster, better semiconductors. Once we all realized that the RBOCs would simply screw it up again, we had to turn to the semiconductors to speed up the Net. And they are accomplishing that. (An aside: My cable modem, which had been down, got fixed yesterday, and my 7-year-old daughter could not be pried from Go's comic-book section.) 3.Texas Instruments (TXN:NYSE) reinvented itself successfully as a communications-chip company. This is a truly fantastic turnaround that has many people gawking at the earnings explosion. 4.Conexant (CNXT:Nasdaq) blew the numbers away, the only legitimate preannouncement to the upside we have seen so far this quarter, and a lot of that is in mixed-signal chips (the old Brooktree) that are in high demand. 5.DRAMs stopped mattering as much to the group, thank heavens. 6.Intel (INTC:Nasdaq) did not blow up. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say when you get a theme like this, the first reaction of the skeptics is that it is already too late, the cycle has been missed and the latecomers are now coming in. I don't buy that. Asia just turned. No greedy investment bankers are printing up semi offerings to sate us before we can make big money. And the companies themselves are seasoned -- they have seen downturns. They understand cyclicality. They won't screw it up.