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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Return to Sender who wrote (760)	7/3/2001 1:52:51 AM
From: The Ox	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95632

Full pdf with graphs and tables: witcapital.com Summary: he SIA reported three-month rolling average May billings Friday after the close. The inclusion of May and the dropping of February reduced year-over-year billings growth rates to the lowest levels seen in the past 11 years. On a year-over-year basis, worldwide growth decelerated to -20.0% from -10.2% last month. As we have noted previously, the current rate of decline in year-over-year growth rates continues to exceed that which was seen at the end of the 1995 semiconductor cycle. Overall growth showed a 7.3 three-month rolling average month-over-month decrease, significantly lower than the historic 0.5% increases seen on average over the past 11 years. By geography, all regions were down on a three-month rolling month-over-month basis with Asia-Pacific again showing a decline after having seen an increase last month. As we had noted last month, we believe that the increase seen in Asia-Pacific in April was more reflective of dropping an extremely weak January rather than suggesting strength in the region with single month April billings (not the three-month rolling average) declining by 28% month over month. The Americas saw a 10.8% decrease in three-month rolling month-over-month averages followed by Europe that declined by 7.7%, Japan decreased by 5.8% and Asia-Pac decreased by 4.5%. As we have noted previously, a combination of over inventory conditions as well as spreading economic weakness - including Europe - are combining to reduce both month-over-month and year-over-year growth. We have continued to be somewhat cautious on the sector as we have entered the summer. As we noted upon returning from our week-long research trip to the Far East, we believe that the summer is likely to continue to be a more difficult period than expected for most companies. We continue to worry that a combination of both typical European seasonality as well as spreading economic weakness in Europe could combine to bring more attractive entry points for the group. We continue to look toward 4Q as being the most likely quarter that will see some early signs of recovering fundamentals, although it may be early 2002 before the industry finds its footing.