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

To: Crossy who wrote (2311)	3/19/2002 2:16:33 AM
From: Crossy	Respond to of 95536

re: HWP/CPQ (partially OT because boxmaker not semi) ok, here's my spin on it.. For sharesholders of HWP the merger is a TERRIBLE idea. For power-hungry executives they love the associated perks of incrased sales. IMHO, all CPQ does offer is a commodity brand. Maybe some value in midsized enterprise servers but nothing that couldn't be replicated with COTS (Commercial off the shelf componentS). IMHO little that CPQ offers is scarce, not replicable or causal ambigous enough to stand on it own. HWP's strengths .. semi effort with Intel, their own RISC designs and especially their PRINTER offerings are NOT SO EASY to duplicate. Buying market share is a terrible idea from a shareholder value perspective.. IF you follow the ressource based view on enterprise strategy you immediately can deduct that HWP will thrive standalone while CPQ certainly won't. All HWP would acquire is essentially a "BRAND" that resonates well with managers while HWP is more on its turf with engineering types. Is that brand really worth BILLIONS if all the components they offer are available in a GENERIC way ? The Hewletts were right in ANY ASPECT to diss this idea. I hope Ms. Carly Fiona will not get their plan thru. Another attempt to gain power at the expense of shareholder value. Not ! Kudos for Hewlett Foundation. Keeping my fingers crossed for today. Enough is enough.. ! CROSSY

To: Crossy who wrote (2311)	3/19/2002 8:42:18 AM
From: scott_jiminez	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 95536

Price to sales: While it would be nice to come up with some simple measure to judge the relative valuation of an individual stock, I have found any single statistic, or any combination of these stats, to be highly unreliable and deceptive. For example, if one prefers P/S to PE during this recovery period, then the data below should be quite helpful. Choosing a stock with a P/S less than ~2.5 should leave an investor comfortable that the valuation of their selection would protect them, in general, form significant downside risk. Similarly, the investor would feel comfortable avoiding stocks with a p/s over 5.0, a standard that currently includes AMAT, KLAC, and NVLS, since such valuations are already rich. =================== Stock P/S CAP ---------------------- 1. WFR 0.5 .38 2. SFAM 0.6 .12 3. TGAL 0.9 .02 4. MTSN 1.0 .25 5. ATRM 1.1 .03 6. SMTL 1.4 .31 7. REAL 1.5 .02 8. FSII 1.6 .27 9. GGNS 1.6 .54 10. ASMI 1.8 1.2 11. EMKR 1.9 .34 12. KLIC 1.9 .96 13. VECO 2.0 .87 14. ADEX 2.2 .21 15. ASYT 2.5 .66 16. LRCX 2.5 3.6 17. DPMI 2.6 .96 18. PLAB 2.6 .97 19. PRIA 2.8 .67 20. BRKS 3.0 1.0 21. UTEK 3.5 .46 22. EGLS 4.3 .37 23. ATMI 4.4 .93 24. COHU 4.4 .56 25. HELX 4.6 .54 26. TER 4.6 6.7 27. NANO 4.7 .23 28. CREE 5.6 1.0 29. CYMI 5.6 1.5 30. ASML 5.7 11.4 31. NVLS 5.7 7.7 32. KLAC 5.8 12.3 33. CMOS 6.3 1.3 34. LTXX 6.7 1.3 35. AMAT 7.1 42.5 36. PHTN 13.8 .86 37. IBIS 14.0 .10 =================== Averages (+/- standard error): P/S = 3.90 (+/- 0.5) CAP = 2.79 (+/- 1.21) BTW, there is a small, positive correlation (r = .25) between p/s and market cap. While this relationship is insignificant, there is an unmistakable trend: Here is the P/S data divided in quartiles showing the average market cap (+/- standard error) of the stocks in that quartile. 1-9: .220 (+/- 0.06) 10-18: 1.09 (+/- 0.33) 19-27: 1.27 (+/- 0.66) 28-37: 8.00 (+/- 4.1) [Avg. = 4.16 excluding AMAT] These data strongly suggest that the p/s is distorted and skewed by market cap. I seriously doubt AMAT investors, for example, would be moved one micron by the high p/s valuation associated with their stock. In fact, the high p/s would most likely be presented as supporting evidence for the incredibly promising future for their company. It's the usual statistics thing: everyone twists data to their advantage. I've been investing in this sector through three full cycles now. There is rarely, if ever, useful information to be gained from this sort of valuation-based statistical analysis. [All data gathered from Yahoo this morning]