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

To: StanX Long who wrote (60812)	2/21/2002 2:42:11 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Chip-Equipment Numbers Get Wintry Reception e-insite.net -- TheStreet.com, 2/20/2002 In the not-too-distant past, any piece of even remotely positive news from the chip sector sent analysts into a screaming frenzy about how the worst was over. Times have changed. Where blind hope once was common, words of caution now (at least, sometimes) prevail. As evidence, the reaction to the latest book-to-bill data for semiconductor-equipment companies. The book-to-bill ratio increased to 0.81 last month from 0.77 in December, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, an industry association. That means $ 81 worth of new orders was received for every $ 100 of products billed. As the ratio moves higher, the traditional thinking goes, the worst of a downturn is over. But according to some analysts, even with the increase in January, the forecast remains poor for semiconductor capital equipment companies, which make the testing and processing machinery for chip manufacturers, because new orders continue to be weak. "The problem is, the ratio is increasing because shipments are getting worse, and not because orders are getting much better," said Gerard Fleming, an analyst at Fahnestock. Book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving average bookings to three-month moving average billings for the North American semiconductor-equipment industry. The three-month average of worldwide orders ticked up to $ 636.9 million from $ 628.5 million in December, but that was 66% below January 2001, when bookings totaled $ 1.85 billion. Historically, improving orders have been considered a leading indicator for the sector.