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

To: Return to Sender who wrote (5128)	8/28/2002 1:24:34 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95456

Here is an assessment of the semi-equip sector by Briefing.com. <<Semi Equipment : An analyst call getting surprisingly little attention today is that of USB Piper Jaffray which expects Novellus Systems (NVLS 24.48 -0.66) to revise its order guidance outlook downward from -10% sequentially to down as much as 30% in its mid-qtr update after the close tomorrow. Could this be the last nail in the coffin for the battered semi equipment sector? Maybe we won't go that far, but there is still room to go lower for the group. The news is not expected to improve anytime soon. Many are expecting orders to fall again in Q4 with the best case scenario of an uptick in the first half of 2003. Kulicke & Soffa (KLIC 3.76 -0.14) makes equipment to put chips into their final packaging. These back-enders of the semi equipment industry typically lead coming out of a downturn and see changes in demand fairly quickly and before many others. KLIC recently guided even lower as demand remains sluggish. Also, just a couple of weeks ago, industry giant Applied Materials (AMAT 13.58 -0.35) finally guided lower as it was the last of the biggies to admit it's ugly out there. The equipment industry has been hammered by a fresh wave of cuts in capital spending by chip makers and weak demand for chip-hungry hardware such as personal computers. There is growing concern that Intel (INTC 17.01 -0.17) will lower cap-ex guidance in its mid-qtr call on Sep 5... There are also longer term concerns for some of these names. As Greg Jones recently wrote in a Story Stock, the move to more efficient technologies is occurring, but it is not occurring at a fast enough pace to sustain AMAT's revenues and the current technology is good enough already. Our point here is to be cautious heading into the NVLS and INTC calls over the next week. -- Robert J. Reid, Briefing.com