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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment-Sell when they're singing in the streets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (162)	5/30/2000 11:15:00 PM
From: Q.	Respond to of 276

Having listened to many conference calls in the sector since 1996, a time span that has included a couple of very nasty downturns in the stock prices, I've come to the following two conclusions: #1 CEO's in this sector truthfully tell you what they know about the outlook for business conditions. #2 Conclusion # 1 doesn't matter. The CEO's are as surprised as anybody else, when a downturn or upturn happens. Here's an example: I've kept careful notes each quarter for Mattson conference calls for a couple of years. Included in my notes are an assessment of how positive or negative a tone the CEO expressed, re. the outlook. Looking back at them, I find that the CEO was: * ebullient about the outlook just weeks before bookings entered a serious downturn in 1997 ("1998 will be a great year for Mattson Technology," he said) * his most negative tone was expressed just before an upturn in 1998. I think conference calls are exceedingly valuable for understanding the business. But if somebody wants to time the market for this highly cyclical sector, the conference calls are not helpful in the way you would like. Indeed, if they have any utility at all in timing a stock investment, it is as a CONTRARIAN indicator. Even then, they aren't precise.

To: Ian@SI who wrote (162)	5/30/2000 11:42:00 PM
From: Pink Minion	Respond to of 276

...and certainly not a disgruntled ex-employee. I started banging on keyboards when Bill Gates stole his first program. I spent my entire career at Nortel, in which half of my work was cancelled by pointy hairs. I've never worked for any company in this industry. I specialized in Object Oriented Software development, Design Patterns, and Use Cases. I spent my entire career battling Microsoft on every front. When they became my development environment, I had enough. So if you own MSFT, I have a reason not to like them. The software development industry is a joke. The quality is pathetic and there is only one company to blame. When a 15 year old kid can write a 20 line script and cause 10 billion is lost work, there is something wrong.