To: Tony Viola who wrote (35659 ) 7/8/2000 1:03:31 PM From: tom Respond to I've seen research suggesting that dot com spending was responsible for 5% of the total IT spending last year and 20 % of the growth. We can debate for hours how accurate this estimate is but it feels about right. The question is: Does the fact that HSBC will spend $2bn this year on IT in 2000 outweigh the fact that Boo.com will spend nothing. My opinion is that it will be a close call. Of course, on a 5 year view this is unimportant but semiconductor stocks don't care about that. At this stage of the cycle, with the ratings they trade on, any bad news on inventories, oversupply, demand of 25% rather than 35% and the stocks will be toast. Most people would agree that flash is in trouble and, if was a betting man, I would bet that it will be the foundries that see the worst downturn this time. I think I'm the only person that doesn't think Morris Chang (TSMC president) is a guru. He has called every cycle wrong so far (Just like Micron, AMAT (although they called 12" OK) and, yes, Joseph who downgraded the sector in March 1999 and missed the next 300% upside in Micron!)
