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

To: Return to Sender who wrote (8683)	2/19/2003 11:01:36 PM
From: Return to Sender	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95737

Semiconductor Equipment . . . Standard and Poor's said the semiconductor-equipment industry should grow 5 to 10 percent this year after declines of 41 percent in 2001 and 33 percent in 2002. Equity analyst Richard Tortoriello released a semi-annual report today. The semiconductor capital equipment book-to-bill ratio for January came in at 0.92. This represents a decline from December's b-to-b ratio of 0.94. Morgan Stanley's industry analyst's previous estimates were in the range of 0.93-0.98 for this indicator. The analyst believes this announcement to be a "non-event" despite missing his forecasts for January Overall orders were down 10% month-to-month (month/month) and well below the average 1% seasonal growth posted in January over the last 12 years. Billings declined 8% M/M, greater than the normal 2% month/month decline for January. The front-end process equipment (Applied Materials, Novellus, Lam Research, KLA Tencor etc.) showed a largest order drop, declining 12%, after growing the last two months. We believe this drop was due to strong DRAM orders for Applied in October, which fell off the 3 month moving average. The back-end test and assembly equipment (Teradyne, Kulicke & Soffa etc.) orders declined 2% in January, continuing a downward trend started several months ago. Back- end sales declined for the fourth month in a row as the seasonally slow period resulted in fewer installs. Semiconductors . . . Morgan Stanley upgraded Intel. Morgan Stanley told clients it raised the stock "to reflect current valuation parameters and our belief that Intel should benefit from a new product cycle, enhanced pricing power, and an improved cost structure." The broker left the chip giant's earnings estimates and 12-18 month stock-price target of $25 unchanged. The broker also upgraded the investment ratings of Xilinx and Texas Instruments. USB Piper Jaffray believes that Intel will announce later today that it has begun internal sampling of a gigabit ethernet chip, which would be negative for Marvell, for whom INTC is a 21% customer. Pacific Crest, however, is positive on MRVL. The firm says its checks at the ongoing Intel Developer Forum indicate that INTC is unlikely to introduce its own gigabit ethernet chip anytime soon. The firm believes development problems will lead to a late 4th quarter launch at the earliest. 2020insight.com