RE: "On your grades, I don't have any idea how Intel is doing in any of these businesses. Where are you getting your information?"
Hi John, there's been several posts on press releases issued and several posts on the new businesses to generate at least an initial impression or opinion, which is where I have formulated my initial opinion from. Admittedly, sometimes I tend to cultivate strong opinions.
Since we're essentially on the topic of interpreting SI posts to formulate opinions, let me mention one thing where I think this thread could do a better job, which is:
To not immediately shoot down a valid question and to give adequate consideration to comments which suggest there is a need for more research.
I mention this, because when the thread occasionally ignores significant information, or ignores questions, or doesn't give enough consideration to informative posts (and I'm guilty of all 3 of these too), we as readers and investors can lose valuable investment information.
I'll give two examples where this happened in the past (so my point is clear):
a) There was an excellent post that you made, John, during the summer, and to paraphrase your post you said, "when gas gets expensive, consumers spend less." I think this Thread could have given your post more consideration and discussed it thoroughly. I think Gary Ng & Jim McMannis, off the top of my head, were the only two that even replied.
b) Another example of a point being ignored was my question during the summer, asking why the price of TCs declined, and I suggested that this needed to be researched.
It's too bad your point and my question weren't pursued, rather than ignored by the thread and ridiculed by a non-regular poster. I was a bit annoyed by this too. In the future, the Thread could help by drawing information out, and in the future, I will be more persistent in my questions on what I think needs to be researched more, so important points or potentially undiscovered aspects, aren't ignored. By doing this, we work together, and none of us gets burned.
Here's my post below, where I suggested more research on ("did original demand fall, or did supply overly increase"), a question which was ignored:
Monday, Jul 10, 2000
From: Amy J
... (this particular analyst) has done us all a favor by providing us valuable information - the type of information which was not provided to us back in 1999 by the analyst community (and should have been).
As an investor, I value information the most. Sure, I may not agree with the opinion around that information, but I value any analyst which does the leg-work to provide valuable information and has the guts to make a call that doesn't go with the pack.
Any analyst who has just provided us with some key information on tantalum capacitors and who has done the leg-work on tantalum capacitors gets my respect and thanks, since this is key and highly relevant information that
was missing in the analyst community back in mid-1999 it appears. Let's not encourage a repeat of that.
Please tell me, since you do not like Jonathan's report, do you think tantalum capacitors are not plunging 50% in the last few weeks? Do you think Jonathan is wrong on this? Do you think the plunging tantalum prices do not
put AMD at risk, as Jonathan pointed out? Isn't their a connection to TCs and AMD? Please answer this since these are Jonathan's points in his report, which you so criticized.
Note: the drop in tantalum prices coincided with the drop in AMD. Jonathan is the first semi analyst that I know that reported the drop in TCs.
Not providing information is a worse evil than having a wrong opinion. I like information more than being upset if an opinion around that information is different than mine. I like how Jonathan provided that key piece of information on tantalum capacitors, which by the way, appeared to be lacking [by the analysts, not by all high-tech folks] back in 1999 and had significant ramifications.
So, contrary to you, I greatly appreciate the fact that Jonathan is the only semi analyst that I know who has reported the recent declining prices in tantalum capacitors. He's done his leg-work on this, and I respect this a lot. Have you done your leg-work on this? Do you criticize an analyst for doing this leg-work? I appreciate that Jonathan did this and provided this information to us investors.
Note: separate out his opinion from the information he provides (which re: TCs is good).
...
For some history, let me remind you what happened in 1999.
Around August of 1999 the high-tech industry was being alerted to the potential of an imminent shortage in tantalum capacitors....in October of 1999, ...Dell reported some issues with shortages. I seem to recall people on this thread had accused Dell of dishonesty about this. I took issue with that [because back then, it was obvious actual industry demand was very high due to reported high memory & TCs prices], just like I am now [i.e. 7-00] taking issue with folks criticizing Jonathan for providing us valuable information [that TCs were plunging in price] on TCs and for doing the leg-work --- leg-work which should and could have been done by the investment community back in August of 1999.
...
Okay, now let's change topics. Let's discuss his opinion (which is a separate matter from the information he provided). Do I agree with his opinion?
I think since TCs have plunged, this indirectly puts AMD at a potential risk. However, I do not agree that the semi is seeing a peak. [wrong] The decline in TCs does not necessarily mean demand is tapering off since TCs may decline for one of two reasons: a) original demand has dropped [correct reason!!!] or b) too many suppliers have come on-line [wrong reason!]. [Too bad the Thread didn't pursue this question!!!]
For the report to be complete, I would need to see a discussion around this (did original demand fall, or did supply overly increase), not just a discussion around the declining prices - why the prices declined is key. (Maybe the report covered this?) [Too bad the Thread didn't pursue this question!!!]
The issue could be simply that more TC suppliers came online ... I would need to know more (increase in # of suppliers & production, not just pricing information) before I could make a conclusion.
...
I won't be disrespectful to anyone who provides information and who does leg-work. I like to encourage this. Also, I prefer to read different people's opinion, rather than be blinded, like the industry was back in Q3-99 because everyone was following the pack -- just remember the shortage that took quite a few people by surprise back in 1999, because folks weren't doing their legwork [on TCs] or were following the pack.
...
I continue to respect anyone who provides information, especially on TCs. I do not like how the media tore him apart for his report. They should have given him credit for providing this information. Did anyone else provide this information? So, let's separate out the information from the opinion. His information has great value. Also, his opinion has great value if you are an investor in AMD. If I were an AMD investor, I would track this TC stuff down and find out what's the underlying cause in the price drop - orig demand issues or too many new TC suppliers. [Too bad my suggestion here was ignored too]
Regards,
Amy J
end of an old July-00 post
---
So, John, in conclusion, my impression is that sometimes we on this Thread, aren't as interested in researching information as what we need to be (and I'm guilty of this too). But none of us wants to get burned, so we should be interested. We especially do not want to get burned by points that already have been brought up by others or by some of us here. Maybe if we would have discussed your excellent summer-time post more, about the consumer demand, we would have been more careful. Maybe next time. I hope my post acts as a reminder and as an encouragement to keep questioning.
So, please keep asking your excellent questions!
Regards, Amy J |
