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

To: John Trader who wrote (60962)	2/26/2002 1:02:52 AM
From: brunn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

It interested me to compare AMAT's Annual report of 2001 (just received) with the one of 1996 in regards to the previous 5 year financial results. Reported results in 1996 report (split adjusted): Year, EPS 1992, 0.07 1993, 0.15 1994, 0.325 1995, 0.64 1996, 0.82 Reported results in 2001 report: 1997, 0.68 1998, 0.35 1999, 0.91 2000, 2.40 2001, 0.60 If you take away the bubble year of 2000, earnings were essentially flat over the most recent 5 year time period whereas in the previous 5 year period, earnings typically doubled year after year. 2002, unfortunately, will only make it harder to see any growth in these annual figures. Despite this, AMAT is trading today at a much higher valuation based on earnings (either current, forecast or based on previous peak earnings), sales, or book value than it did 5 years ago. And if you remember 5 years ago we were not hoping for a robust rebound a year away, we were experiencing a full-blown recovery with earnings well on there way to a complete recovery until the Asian Crisis cooled things off. AMAT probably cannot repeat the glory years of the early 1990's. The question is will the market start to doubt the ability of AMAT to show any kind of consistent growth in the next 5 years given the sporadic results of the last 5 years.

To: John Trader who wrote (60962)	2/26/2002 9:34:59 AM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 70976

Hey John, I guess i was finally right at least for a bit. Naz held 1700. My belief is that nasdaq will return to its pre-enron 5-1 relationship to the dow with the dow going to 11k in a rally scenario. I know I know that puts naz back at 2200. Old top in that range was 2300+. A little optimistic for the dows first crack at 11k but by mid year this would not surprise me. mike PS Re enron The market has always questioned earnings quality of many cos---ibm,ge,csco and still payed richly for those stocks. What we will see is some bottom line reductions based on more careful reporting. The market will eventually view this as positive which or course it is and ultimately when earnings really pick up this will be a mere blip for pe ratios.