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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (714)	2/20/2002 12:47:26 PM
From: Fred Levine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Thanks Brian-- From ML: "We expect evidence to continue to grow for a technology upgrade cycle beginning at some point in the second half of 2002." Brett Hodess Senior Semiconductor Capital Equipment Analyst Global Securities Research and Economics Group Merrill Lynch Data Support Cautious Optimism in Chip Sector —February 20, 2002 Brett Hodess, Merrill Lynch Senior Semiconductor Capital Equipment Analyst, provided this analysis of the latest industry data: The preliminary January semiconductor capital equipment book-to-bill for the U.S. equipment companies came out at 0.81, increasing from the revised 0.77 ratio in December due to a faster rise in orders versus shipments. December was adjusted from the preliminary level of 0.78. Our estimate for January had been for 0.82. Overall orders increased 1% month-to-month, to $637 million. Orders have now firmly established a base that troughed in September 2001, with modest growth thereafter. Shipments fell 4% month-to-month. After 14 months of consecutive declines, December shipments were flat and now that January shipments are down a mere 4% we believe the shipments are essentially bouncing along the bottom. Front-end orders decreased 5% month-to-month, following the previous month's 2% increase, causing the front-end book-to-bill to decrease slightly to 0.78 from a revised 0.79 in the previous month. Back-end book-to-bill increased sharply to 0.97 from a revised 0.65 in the previous month. Orders increased 50% month-to-month for the second-straight month, as the cancellations that had been quite severe over the past couple of quarters have essentially gone away. U.S. fab utilization data became available earlier this week as well. The Federal Reserve reported semiconductor fab utilization for January was up to 60.6% versus December of 60.2%. Utilization appears to have stabilized over the past five months. We believe utilization remains a leading indicator for equipment orders and therefore, stock prices. With the bookings data, the book-to-bill ratio, and utilization rates all beginning to show a bottom but with no significant upside, we would not expect a significant impact from this news, especially after the run over the last couple of weeks. We believe the downside risk to the stocks is well above their September lows due to the stabilizing fundamentals and would expect any near-term weakness to be driven by overall weakness in the stock market, not industry-specific issues. However, we believe investors with a 12- to 18-month time horizon should see attractive returns as we expect evidence to continue to grow for a technology upgrade cycle beginning at some point in the second half of 2002. PS Let me know how you enjoy Nepal. We have a friend in Dharmasala and a standing invitation. fred

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (714)	2/21/2002 1:22:07 PM
From: Jerome	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 25522

AMAT ...and...market share... I believe some caution is advised here.... Market share is like counting worms in small can. If five companies made the same product they would use five different methods for determining market share...and they would be.. 1) Dollar Volume 2) Unit Volume 3) Past six months sales 4) Installed base 5) Future orders What does concern me is a a mention that mutual fund inflows for the month of January were the lowest in 11 years.( only $3 billion) With this low of a cash flow (into funds and tech stocks) added to a weak earnings picture, a strong business recovery could take place with bo stock price appreciation. I suspect (no available proof) that so many people got burned by the stock market in the past year that sitting on the sidelines is the only mental state that they can endure. I think that this will be a year of making money . "The Hard Way" Regards, Jerome