To: Julius Wong who wrote (3630 ) 4/7/2001 7:44:25 AM From: Julius Wong Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 4916 Too Soon to Romance Bashed Semis -- Apr 6 2001 by Dan Dorfman NEW YORK (JAGfn.com)--Bottom fishing is leading many pros to hook on to the beaten-up semiconductor stocks on the seemingly growing Street theory that the group is bottoming out. But what may look appetizing may very well not be. That, at least, is how Banc of America Securities' semi tracker Douglas Lee sees it. It is still too early for fundamental investors to overweight this sector, he says. His rationale: --Backlog cancellations are slowing, but new bookings remain disappointing. --Though sequential sales growth in the industry could resume in the September quarter, Wall Street's consensus earnings estimates for the year still seem too high. --Global semiconductor sales will likely contract 15%-20% this year. Based on every sensitivity analyses conducted by BOAS, estimated quarterly year-over-year sales growth for the industry should not occur until sometime in 2002. --Valuations are significantly higher than in the prior troughs reached in each of the last two downturns (1996 and 1998), presenting significant downside risk if sentiment sways. Lee says he fully expects the industry to eventually return to its longer term 15%-20% average annual growth rate achieved over the past four decades. However, he believes there is a strong possibility that the semi recovery will be slower and more gradual than the recent downturns experienced in 1996 and 1998. If business trends stabilize in the second half, with an outlook for a gradual recovery--which is what Lee expects--the analyst believes it still may take some time for a forward P/E ratio to command the 35-40 average seen in recent years. A group of 14 semi stocks currently tracked by BOAS is currently trading at roughly 35 times Lee's calendar 2002 earnings-per-share estimates. Notwithstanding the already well-known problems in the industry--such as falling volume, some excess inventories and declining orders--Lee sees what he construes are three incremental areas of risk to the industry's current fundamentals. In brief: --Negative operating leverage. Many of the broad-line chip companies are just now beginning to experience the negative impact on operating margins due to high fixed costs and lower fab utilization. For example, companies such as National Semiconductor (NSM), 23.18 and LSI Logic (LSI), 15.60, which were reporting tremendous margin gains over the past year, are now running at slightly better than a break-even performance. Should top-line growth prove weaker than expected over the near term, additional margin compression could put semiconductor manufacturers into the red. --Price risk. Most semis have seen relatively stable pricing, blaming the bulk of recent sales shortfalls on volume declines alone. Should unit sales remain lackluster, pricing pressure looms as a potential risk. For example, we are now seeing for the first time in this cycle a substantial impact on sales and margins due to weaker prices at some of the fabless flash producers. --Duration. The duration of the current downturn remains the biggest question mark. The sheer number of layoff announcements in the first quarter signals the industry cautiousness surrounding any recovery over the medium term. Lee says he likes the idea of buying into premium companies at basement prices. The problem, though, as he sees it: "We are just not convinced that we are there yet."