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

To: Gottfried who wrote (37006)	8/26/2000 10:37:51 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

I've been thinking about your "backlog" chart. geocities.com It would be cool to see AMAT price (log y-axis) plotted on the chart just for grins. Nit. Orders minus Shipments is "amount added to backlog" not "backlog". This would allow the "negative backlog months" to make sense. (what happened to orders and shipments that you used to show?) I think we need to integrate Orders-shipments to see the true backlog and thus health of the industry. AMAT stayed profitable in the '98 downturn by shipping from backlog. The problem with an integration is where to set the zero point? Perhaps start 1995 with zero since that is where your chart begins? You could note that on the chart and even wannabe mathmaticians would be happy. Call it "backlog created since 1995. 8) Why look at true backlog? Well, if orders and shipments are going up and book-to-bill is still positive, then the industry is "storing" more capacity to ship for the next downturn cycle. The fly in my ointment is if a company cancels an order. Kirk