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

To: Return to Sender who wrote (9134)	3/25/2003 6:27:23 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 96172

Updated: 26-Mar-03 - General Commentary - As a rule, we try to leave the 'Iraq analysis' to the political scientists and the journalists. Nonetheless, these events in Iraq are worth a quick comment from the standpoint of their market implications. Whether the war is going well on a granular level -- i.e. tactically -- is certainly notable to the extent it gets to the timing of a potential conclusion. Yet there is a second aspect to this conflict that carries just as much relevance to the market. Before this war started, the average person had a relatively full spectrum of questions -- will other countries intervene in the dispute, will the U.S. experience terrorist attacks in retaliation, will nuclear weapons somehow come into play, might the war be averted altogether, etc etc. Whether some, or any, of those issues were reasonable concerns, they were on the table as decision variables to a certain degree. The point being with the current shape of things, the present set of questions measures up well versus that original set of potential outcomes. There is a war -- which in and of itself removes uncertainty -- and these ancillary issues have been relatively contained to this point. With this as the current backdrop, it's worth considering how the Nasdaq is situated in a broader sense. Frequent readers may recall last Wednesday, we went on ad nauseam regarding the significance of resistance at 1423. For our purposes today, we'll stay away from the truly granular details. Nonetheless, this 1419 to 1423 range is notable for several reasons. Most significantly, it brackets the September 11th-induced reaction lows -- which bottomed at 1423 -- as well as the reaction lows of October 1998, which bottomed at 1419. This means the index is now approaching resistance at an area that formerly represented support going back as far as five years -- again, these were formerly extreme panic lows. So be wary of the knee-jerk reaction which says this initial rally has the indices bloated. This isn't to say you should expect the markets to head substantially higher tomorrow -- consolidation is to be expected following that sizeable broad market move. But it is to say the broader technical tone has improved substantially since March 13th. Professionals will likely favor a 'buy-the-dips' approach to the current market until more convincing signs of broader technical deterioration become evident. -- Mike Ashbaugh, Briefing.com 4:13PM Merix tops estimates; updates guidance (MERX) 4.30 -0.13: Reports Q3 (Feb) loss of $0.25 per share, $0.02 better than the Multex consensus of ($0.27); revenues rose 19.5% year/year to $22.1 mln vs the $22.0 mln consensus; co. anticipates that sales will be approximately flat compared to the third quarter, with a net loss between $0.24 and $0.26 per share -- Multex consensus estimates call for a net loss of $0.21 per share and $23 mln respectively. 4:04PM Photronics to cut workforce by 10% to 12% (PLAB) 12.75 +0.27: Co. will record an after tax charge of between $36.0 million and $40.0 million, or an estimated $1.12 and $1.25 per diluted share, in the fiscal quarter ending May 4, 2003; expects to "return to profitability" by July 2003. 9:46AM Micron started with Buy at Fulcrum; target $12.50 (MU) 8.40 +0.06: The rating and bullish target reflect firm's positive pricing outlook for DRAM in the second half, cost-reduction efforts that ultimately make the company more competitive, and a favorable risk/reward ratio based on valuation analysis. 9:34AM Aeroflex could be beneficiary from spending request - Roth (ARXX) 5.95 -0.04: Roth Capital believes that ARXX will be one of the beneficiaries from President Bush's additional financial request to cover the Iraq war; with hundreds of munitions already dropped in Iraq and given that the conflict could last longer than originally expected, firm believes there could a replenishment cycle in terms of munitions inventory. finance.yahoo.com^SOXX+ALTR+AMAT+AMD+ARXX+BRCM+INTC+KLAC+LLTC+LSCC+LSI+MERX+MOT+MU+MXIM+NSM+NVLS+PLAB+TER+TXN+XLNX+^IXIC+^NDX+^SPX+^VIX+^VXN+SMH&d=t