To: TGPTNDR who wrote (859 ) 7/15/2000 9:50:15 AM From: DRBES Respond to I suspect that the real key to understanding AMD's earnings, to be announced and hour or so after the close 7/19/2000 and hopefully discussed, in depth, during the Conference Call, that starts at 5:30 PM EDT on that day will be its cash flow . It is clear, to me at least, that the company is rapidly becoming awash in cash. There are a number of complicating issues, however: The company is currently ramping up and starting production on a record number of fronts. This activity all costs an immense amount of cash and, given its extremely conservative method for depreciating equipment and rapidly writing off R&D costs, the earnings, if AMD follows its past pattern and there is no reason to expect them to deviate, may well understate what is really happening. Further, the GATEWAY debacle, which as far as I have been able to find out so far is entirely a GATEWAY problem, has delayed and even reduced in value a substantial number of significant high value Athlon 1 Gig Thunderbird shipments. guess at it more precisely. Unlike many who hold the stock, I do not expect to take a number at the low end of the range as a bad omen. They are investing extremely rapidly in that which will become future earnings, annual earnings that I suspect will, in time approach the prices that the stock traded for a little over a year ago.STAY TUNED!!!!!
