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Technology Stocks : Micron Only Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bipin Prasad who wrote (50600)	2/29/2000 11:42:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 53903

Micron Technology Shares Rise on Higher Chip Prices Boise, Idaho, Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Micron Technology Inc., the biggest U.S. maker of computer-memory chips, rose 26 percent amid a rebound in chip prices and signs of increasing demand for its products. Micron gained 20 to 98 1/16 in New York Stock Exchange trading of 18.3 million shares. Earlier, the shares touched a record high of 100 in composite trading. Micron said demand has been increasing for its products in recent weeks. Computer-memory prices have risen about 10 percent since last week to about $5.50 for a 64-megabyte chip from $5, said D.A. Davidson & Co. analyst Richard Owens. Because Boise, Idaho-based Micron ships hundreds of millions of chips, price variations have a big affect on sales and earnings. ``Micron in particular has seen pretty weak pricing over most of this calendar year, and the last couple days there's been strength in the spot market,' said Owens, who rates the shares a ``neutral.' Chip prices remain about half of what they were in December, when they rose to about $10. Memory prices rise and fall most when the industry tries to either add more manufacturing capacity to meet surging demand or rein in production to cope with falling sales. Following a two-year slump, prices started rising in the middle of last year as computer makers began shipping more memory in each box and production slowed. Demand Rises Demand for Micron chips has increased in recent weeks, helped by Intel Corp., which is shipping more if its Pentium III processors, said Kipp Bedard, Micron vice president of corporate affairs, ``Clearly demand is starting to pick up again, which is good,' Bedard said, referring to the company's DRAM chips. Bedard was answering questions at a Robertson Stephens technology conference in San Francisco. Some analysts said they believe prices will level off in the second quarter before ticking back up in the second half of the year, when businesses start buying more computers with Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 2000 software. ``Prospects look really good,' said analyst Greg Mischou of Warburg Dillon Read, who rates Micron a ``buy.' ``The spot market is showing signs of stabilizing.' Mischou also said there may be some optimism that Micron will have good news about both spot and contract prices when it makes a presentation at the Robertson Stephens & Co. conference in San Francisco later today. Semiconductor Growth Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown analyst Erika Klauer said in a report today that semiconductor sales will increase 32 percent worldwide to $196 billion this year, after rising 19 percent last year. Klauer said she believes that Micron is probably the world's lowest-cost maker of dynamic random access memories, the main memory chips in personal computers. That will help the company be ``very profitable' for the next 24 months, she said. Klauer resumed coverage of the company today with a ``buy' rating. She said demand for semiconductors is increasing as the use of chips shifts to Internet infrastructure and wireless communications products from PCs. ``After a disappointing three-year downturn, we are at the beginning of a substantial semiconductor industry up-cycle,' Klauer said in the report. Other semiconductor shares also gained today. LSI Logic Corp. rose 6 3/4 to 64 1/16, Applied Micro Circuits Corp. jumped 19 5/8 to 275 1/16 and PMC-Sierra Inc. climbed 14 5/16 to 193 1/16. Altera Corp. climbed 8 1/4 to 79 3/4, Broadcom Corp. rose 15 7/8 to 197 3/8, Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. climbed 12 3/16 to 103 13/16 and Xilinx Inc. gained 9 1/2 to 79 3/4.