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

To: Sam Citron who wrote (59240)	1/23/2002 1:20:32 PM
From: Math Junkie	Respond to of 70976

If there have been any semi equip companies that did not have conservative fiscal management, they probably did not survive their first industry downturn.

To: Sam Citron who wrote (59240)	1/23/2002 1:22:01 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

>>The incipient business historian in me is curious as to whether the semi-equip industry has always had this fiscal conservatism, or whether it got religion through a near-Enron experience in the semi or semi-equip industry?<< I would guess that the less conservative companies went bankrupt or merged years ago. They certainly didn't survive long enough to become AMAT or KLAC. Katherine

To: Sam Citron who wrote (59240)	1/23/2002 1:42:41 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

It is a wonder to me that ENE was so naive as not to recognize the inherent volatility of the energy trading business. It starts at the Top. NVLS, AMAT (and now LRCX and Agilent) all get to where they are by not taking large risks with accounting tricks and they manage for cash flow which is real. Since I was trained at HWP (now Agilent) I look for this conservative accounting in companies I invest in... one of the factors. I heard on the news yesterday that Enron CEO Lay was selling all those ENE shares as it went up because he was getting margin calls of sorts from other investments! It seems he was a risk taker outside the company as well as with the company. I've now become a firm believer that the person running the company and its board of directors are sure important and you want to bolt if you suspect them of monkey business. Kirk