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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (34554)	3/13/2000 5:43:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Micron Tech Shares Rise on Optimism for Higher Chip Prices 3/13/00 Source: Bloomberg News Boise, Idaho, March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Micron Technology Inc., the biggest U.S. maker of computer-memory chips, rose as much as 7.9 percent on optimism that prices for its products will rebound as demand begins to increase next month. Micron rose 7 3/4 to 114 1/8 in early afternoon trading of 3.79 million shares. Earlier, it touched a record 114 3/4. The stock has gained 47 percent since Feb. 28 on enthusiasm for rising prices for dynamic random access memories, the main memory chips in personal computers. The spot price today for a 64-megabyte computer-memory chip was about $5.22, down half a percent from Friday, though still up from a low of about $5 last month, Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Eric Ross said. Investors are buying Micron shares in hopes that rising demand for PCs will push up memory prices, Ross and other analysts said. 'There's an underlying hope for strength in prices,' said Thomas Smith, a Standard & Poor's Equity Group analyst who rates Micron an 'outperform.' 'Things have looked better in the past couple weeks. I suspect that trend is continuing.' Ross said demand for DRAM chips will accelerate in April and May. He said DRAM sales will almost double this year from last year, when sales rose 105 percent on a strong back-to-school season. That's well above the average 80 percent growth in the last few years. 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 PC makers began shipping more memory in each machine and production slowed. 'The worst is behind us,' said Ross, who rates Boise, Idaho- based Micron a 'buy.' Infineon Micron may be getting a boost from enthusiasm for Germany's Infineon AG, Europe's third-largest chipmaker. Josephthal & Co. analyst Lawrence Borgman said Infineon operates largely in the DRAM market. Siemens AG sold about 174 million shares, or about 29 percent, of Infineon to the public. Investors sought 33 times the number of shares offered, leaving it heavily oversubscribed, and shares more than doubled to 70.15 euros in Germany in the stock's first day of trading today. 'With the success of the Infineon offering, investors are saying if that's the way to treat Infineon, maybe we ought to take another look at Micron,' Borgman said.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (34554)	3/14/2000 5:13:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Memory module maker Kingston anticipates lower DRAM prices Electronic Buyers' News (03/14/00, 04:10:39 PM EDT) FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. ( ChipWire) -- Despite a brief uptick in DRAM prices late last month, module maker Kingston Technology Co. said today that it will cut its tags by an average of 20% in response to a long-term DRAM pricing downturn. The return of white-box PC makers to the market based on broader availability of Pentium III microprocessors triggered a surge in demand in February that in turn drove up prices of the most popular 64-Mbit chips sold on the gray market, Kingston said. As reported earlier this month, the influx drove the price of a 64-Mbit PC100 SDRAM in an 8x8 configuration from a low of less than $4.50 to as high as $6.30, according to independent distributors. Though the American IC Exchange in Aliso Viejo, Calif., reported today that 8x8 PC100 parts have fallen back to between $5.15 and about $5.50 on the spot market, Kingston foresees continued price pressure as the industry brings on new capacity and shrinks process line widths and chip die sizes. In a statement released today, Kingston said, "all of the signs in the market show a good chance for prices to come back down from the increases seen in February. In anticipation of this, we have made the move to make it more affordable to upgrade today's most popular systems." Kingston's steepest cuts affect Apple Inc.'s Macintosh platforms, with modules for the PowerBook G3 and G4 systems and iMac 233 through 400 series dropping 27% and 25%, respectively, according to the company. Dell Computer Corp. and IBM Corp. customers can expect discounts of about 21% on dual-in-line memory modules (DIMMs) for their desktop systems, while modules for IBM's ThinkPad and Sony Corp.'s Vaio mobile PCs were dropped just under 20%. Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. platforms received module price breaks ranging from 17% to 19%.