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

To: Jack Decker who wrote (35625)	7/8/2000 1:18:35 PM
From: tom	Respond to of 70976

<True, the majority of dot coms will die. There will be massive consolidation and few survivors. But those that do survive will have huge volumes of online sales of goods and services. Do you really think 5 years from now fewer $$$ will flow thru online transactions? To keep up with increased order flow, the survivors will have to invest heavily in servers and network infrastructure.> On a 5 year basis I agree but the semi stocks won't share your faith in the future if they see a 6-12 month lull in volumes. <Korean cell phone rates have fallen off recently because subsidies by the government have dried up. For now WAP is a boondoggle because of slow access speeds, limited web sites, and first generation equipment. Are you really serious, though, in suggesting that cell phone sales have peaked and will now dwindle to nothing? Even in countries with almost universal adoption, users trade in their models every 3 years or less. What about China, Africa, and South America where cell ownership rates are currently 3%?> I am massively bullish on China following a trip there last year. The rate of cellphone growth is accelerating and that's without any competition. With Unicom and a couple of other joining in China could see 100m new suscribers in the next 2-3 years easy. + in Asia people trade their handset in every 6 months. Thailand, India, Indonesia will all will see incredible growth - esp India which is just getting itself sorted out. All that I'm worried about is the big mature markets (UK, Italy, Taiwan, Korea) seeing slow/negative growth. Now people tell me that 3G will have speeds much lower that previously thought. What will affect will that have on demand? <I hope you're not seriously arguing that semi revenues have hit an all time high. They will undoubtedly reach higher levels at some point> Check out the Dataquest "forecasts" from 1995. They all predicted straight line growth out for the future but 1999 revenues were the same as 1995. I agree that in 20 years time semi revenues will be higher than they are now but who cares? The stocks trade on 12 month, not 5 year, forecasts or else who would be stupid enough to have sold the stocks in 1997-8 just before huge upcycle? Finally, I agree that if you just keep buying AMAT and forget about the price you'll be OK on a 5 year view. I just want to avoid the nasty 50% falls along the way.... Good luck