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Strategies & Market Trends : Trading the SPOOs with Patrick Slevin! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary E who wrote (2340)	1/3/2000 8:00:00 PM
From: Patrick Slevin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7434

Thanks, I suppose it would. It's not all that important short term. I took a double out of it last year and have no investment. Old habit. When/if I get a double or triple I take out half or a third. Then the exposure is zero. So I have no exposure in RMBS; going up would be nice, but the triangle.....if it is one.....looks bearish.

To: Gary E who wrote (2340)	1/6/2000 7:15:00 PM
From: Patrick Slevin	Respond to of 7434

Yo, Hal........ Trying to read the Rambus Thread, all the posts look like dat. Can't find anything though. What is the drill with Rambus? It was 67 last I looked (two days ago?) and then a few hours ago it was 88? Are you following it?

To: Gary E who wrote (2340)	1/6/2000 7:21:00 PM
From: Patrick Slevin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7434

Never mind, it's just more smoke and mirrors. This from Yahoo! ================ Stock of the Day Jan 06, 2000 Rambus: Internal Bandwidth...Finally! What can you say about Rambus (Nasdaq:RMBS - news) except "Finally!" After a number of painful setbacks in getting Rambus technology into production, it looks like chip manufacturers are going to ramp up their output of Rambus-based memory for use in PCs and game systems. Rambus DRAM, or RDRAM, features a chip-to-chip interface architecture that dramatically increases the data transfer rate between the memory and microprocessor. Rambus is positioned to reap a windfall by licensing this technology to chip makers. Shares of Rambus jumped over $9 to $80.50 on Wednesday after an industry study said memory chip makers will ship an estimated 270 million RDRAM units this year. That's good news for the company which was rocked by delays last year, mainly due to trouble getting Intel's newest chipset to work properly with RDRAM memory. Ultimately the Rambus technology could become an industry standard, though, and the Nikkei Market Access report cited earlier estimates it will grab 16% of the PC memory market this year. RDRAM is also expected to take the game system market by storm, as the need for speed is especially great for rendering 3D graphics in gaming devices. We've all heard the clamoring for greater bandwidth when it comes to Internet access and networking applications, but the need for internal bandwidth is just as pressing. The current industry-standard architecture for DRAM (memory) chips has severely constrained improvements to the data transfer rate between memory chips and microprocessors. As microprocessor speeds have leapt ahead, a serious "performance gap" developed between memory and microprocessor chips such that we are nearing the point where a faster processor will no longer result in improved PC performance unless memory bandwidth widens. Rambus developed a unique architecture for chip-to-chip interface that doubles the current speed of data transfer, and may quadruple it in a version due later this year. The Rambus technology is already being used in applications such as Nintendo video game systems and some workstations, but the big payoff for the company will be if and when Rambus-based memory chips become the industry standard for PC systems. After a year of disappointing delays, the company should start collecting on that home run this year. Rambus is already profitable and the consensus is for earnings per share of $0.57 in the Fiscal Year 2000 ending in September. That figure is expected to jump to between $2.05 and $3.81 in the next year. Rambus is also working on markets like multifunction computer peripherals, Ethernet networking and digital TV, but the PC and game system markets are seen as the most desperate for this technology right now. Rambus has already licensed its memory chip technology to all of the major DRAM manufacturers. The biggest risk for companies like Rambus which license intellectual property is that someone else could develop a competing technology that is better and/or cheaper. The DRAM manufacturers have been trying to develop their own methods for expanding bandwidth, but they've not yet found a better solution than the fast, small and cheap one offered by Rambus. Even if they did, they would probably have a tough time getting their competitors to license it. Valuation of RMBS is difficult in part because of its unique business model. Few public companies, if any, have ever had an industry-standard technology to license on such a large scale. There are plenty of other "fabless" semiconductor technology companies which license their designs for specific products, but most are not industry standards or on a scale comparable to this. Some analysts suggest using young, high-growth software companies as a benchmark for valuation because of Rambus has no inventory, limited capital expenses, 100% gross margins and gets most of its revenue from licensing. Such stocks have traded at 50 times projected earnings. The problem is having an earnings outlook that you can count on, so with all the delays getting Rambus memory into production investors and analysts are understandably a bit skeptical. Two of the four analysts covering the stock have a Hold rating on RMBS. In short, this is a very high-risk/high-reward stock. Rambus memory has the potential to be an industry standard for PCs and game systems, but it's still very uncertain how quickly the technology will be implemented. - James Hale The Online Investor Archives: [ Thu Dec 30 \| Wed Dec 29 \| Tue Dec 28 \| Mon Dec 27 \| Thu Dec 23 \| more ] Enter one or more ticker symbols, or you may look up the symbol by company name. Copyright ¸ 2000 Yahoo! All Rights Reserved.