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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (37071)	8/30/2000 1:52:44 AM
From: Math Junkie	Respond to of 70976

Sun Tzu, one of the things that was pointed out in this thread about two years ago was that AMAT gains market share during every downturn. Consequently, even though forward P/E ratios for the company have stayed more or less in line with the other big cap names in the sector, their stock fell less than the others during the 1997-1998 downturn, and gained more than the others in the 1998 to 200X upturn. I think that has a lot to do with "Why AMAT".

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (37071)	8/30/2000 6:41:56 PM
From: mitch-c	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

I am not so sure that I agree with your subjective interpretation of risk though. Assessing risk is a very complicated task. I always trust my intuitions when trading, but almost never when assessing risk. It is just too complicated for that approach. Ah. I may be using the language too loosely. When I spoke of "risk," I referred to unknowable events in the future - typhoons, earthquakes, political changes, fickle consumers, and such. I think that there is a tight financial definition of "risk" (Beta?) that is derived from volatility and other quantitative inputs. I'm not talking about that - more so about the expectation of gain vs. loss. - Mitch