From Briefing.com: 6:20PM Semi equip book/bill jumps to 1.04; bookings rise. The semi equipment industry book-to-bill ratio rose to 1.04 in March from a revised 0.90 in February (originally 0.87); the Merrill Lynch estimate for March was 0.96, so this report appears to be a bit better than expected. Bookings rose to $838.8 mln from $737.2 mln (these are rolling 3-month avgs).
5:16PM Altera (ALTR) 21.65 -0.75: -- Update -- On call, company says it expects Q2 gross margin around 60% and this should increase slightly in the second half...Lead times remain short as customers do not want to hold inventory. Telecom customers are taking longer to work though inventory....stock at 21.04.
5:13PM Altera (ALTR) 21.65 -0.75: -- Update -- On conference call, company says Q2 revenue should be up in the mid-single digit range sequentially. In Q1, revenue was about $172 mln, so a 5% sequential increase would be roughly $180 mln vs Multex consensus of $178 mln....stock at 21.26.
4:34PM Altera tops consensus by a penny (ALTR) 21.65 -0.75: Reports Q1 net of $0.04 a share, $0.01 better than consensus, vs yr-ago EPS of $0.16. Sales declined 40% to $171.96 mln (consensus $168.3 mln).
5:47PM FEI Company misses Q1 EPS consensus, meets revs (FEIC) 30.06 -1.11: Reports Q1 (Mar) cash earnings of $0.20 per share, $0.01 worse than the Multex consensus of $0.21; revenues fell 9.6% year/year to $84.5 mln vs the $84.0 mln consensus.
6:10PM STMicroelectronics matches Q1 EPS, misses revs (STM) (30.65 -0.89) Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.04 per share, in line with the Multex consensus; revenues fell 29.4% year/year to $1.35 bln vs the $1.37 bln consensus.
4:35PM Microtune beats by 3 cents (TUNE) 13.81 -1.40: Reports Q1 pro forma loss of $0.13, $0.03 better than the Multex consensus; revs were $18.2 mln, vs consensus of $17.7 mln.
4:13PM Silicon Labs tops consensus by two cents, raises Q2 forecast (SLAB) 35.77 -0.11: Reports Q1 pro forma EPS of $0.03, $0.02 better than the Multex consensus; revs were $28.8 mln, vs consensus of $24.1 mln. Co anticipates another double-digit percentage sequential growth quarter and expects Q2 revenues to increase by 10-15% over Q1 (roughly $31.7-$33.1 mln in revs, well above consensus of $26.3 mln).
4:09PM DSP Group matches estimates (DSPG) 21.27 -0.82: Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.10 per share, in line with the Multex consensus of $0.10; revenues rose 4.3% year/year to $25.2 mln vs the $24.4 mln consensus.
4:06PM Micrel matches estimates, sees good Q2 revenue growth (MCRL) 23.01 -0.56: Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.02, in line with the Multex consensus; revenues fell 36% year/year to $48.3 mln vs the consensus of $46.8 mln. Company says revenue could grow at a double digit rate sequentially; current consensus assumes only a 3% growth rate.
10:15AM Micron upgraded to Equal Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley (MU) 30.41 +0.91: -- Update --
9:46AM Agere Systems upped to Buy at CSFB on spin-off news (AGR.A) 3.77 +0.10: --Update-- CSFB upgrades (pre-market) to BUY from Hold on news the Lucent distribution of Agere is finally possible. Firm believes that Agere's inability to do equity financings prior to the distribution has been responsible for investor concerns regarding Agere's own liquidity during the current downturn.
7:40AM Micron/Hynix talks progress (MU) 29.50: Announces the signing of a non-binding memorandum of understanding for the purchase of Hynix's memory business in exchange for approx 108.6 mln shares of Micron common stock. Micron will also invest $200 mln in Hynix in return for a 15% equity stake in Hynix's continuing non-memory businesses. As part of the transaction, Korean lenders will provide $1.5 bln of long-term debt financing for use by Micron in its Korea-based operations.
7:40AM Anadigics beats by a penny; reaffirms guidance (ANAD) 12.32: Reports Q1 (Mar) loss of $0.37, a penny better than the Multex consensus of ($0.38); revenues were $19.5 mln vs the consensus of $18.6 mln. Company says it's 90% booked to meet Q2 revenue forecast of $21 mln (Multex: $20.6 mln), sees loss of $0.31 vs consensus of a loss of $0.30.
11:23AM Qualcomm (QCOM) 34.89 -2.37: Stock under pressure, trading down 6.4% today in sympathy with WCOM after Y02 revenue warning. On the positive side, Pacific Crest initiated coverage with a Buy as firm believes that, while overall environment is undoubtedly tough, there have been a few bright spots for QCOM, notably Korea and upcoming launch of Sprint PCS 1xRTT network. Firm thinks QCOM's CDMA technology had opportunity to be the standard bearer in the migration of wireless networks to 2.5G technology and beyond. Firm would suggest that investors be opportunistic at every turn to increase exposure to the name, believing QCOM is likely to fare better near term than many of its peers, while being a long-term dominant force in wireless.
11:39AM Telecom Troubles : Can it get any worse for the telecom sector? In a word-- yes. Worldcom Group (WCOM) suggested as much when it lowered its FY02 earnings and revenue guidance for the second time in the past three months after Friday's close. It did so citing volume reductions associated with current economic conditions, including lower voice volumes and Internet and data network reductions by enterprise customers. WCOM's reduced guidance, we would add, follows on the heels of warnings from Qwest (0) and BellSouth (BLS) last week, and a tepid outlook from SBC Communications (SBC), which said meeting its full-year revenue growth target could be challenging. Like many others in its space, WCOM also cut its capital expenditures forecast for 2002 to $4.5 bln from $5.0-5.5 bln. Needless to say, the capex reduction is another blow to the telecom equipment makers, which have been subjected to such revisions for some time now as the service providers have endeavored to mitigate the impact of lower demand, and excess capacity, with cost reductions. Two companies caught in the crosshairs of those cost control efforts have been Lucent (LU) and Ericsson (ERICY). Fittingly, both of those companies were sharing earnings news today. In the case of LU, it posted a narrower than expected loss of $0.14 per share for fiscal Q2 (Mar) and said it expects to see modest sequential improvement in its bottom-line, assuming no significant change in revenues, which were $3.52 bln in Q2. Even so, the company's remarks were tempered by its admission that the length of the industry downcycle remains uncertain, its suggestion that it could incur an additional restructuring charge in its bid to lower its break-even revenue level to somewhat below $4 bln from $4.25 bln, and its decision to cut another 6,000 jobs. Meanwhile, ERICY forecast wireless industry sales to be down more than 10% this year versus prior guidance of flat-to-down 10%, said it wouldn't return to profitability until sometime next year, and indicated it expects to cut another 17,000 jobs by the end of 2003. This latest round of guidance from WCOM, LU, ERICY, and others, is a blow to investors for many reasons, but the overriding message is that a recovery in the telecom sector is going to occur later rather than sooner. Subsequently, investors should continue to avoid the telecom/telecom equipment stocks as the uncertain demand environment makes them better trading vehicles than investment opportunities.-- Patrick J. O'Hare, Briefing.com
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