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

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (9202)	3/30/2003 1:00:30 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 96005

This thread has pretty much been about fundamentals with some TA. The situation in the world is more about Market Timing and gauging sentiment. I remember back in the Cold War days I designed a chip that cost about $2 to build and we sold it for maybe $5 in volume. Then the military paid us about $300+ to put the chip into a hermetic package, test the hell out of it including burn-ins with precise data tracking requirements so each part had a number and you could track it back to how its parameters changed with burn-in. These parts (optical isolators) then went into cruise missiles. I believe my original design is pretty much intact though I started the design in 1978 as a summer intern on a 2" wafer process that was soon converted to 3"! My point is war can be quite profitable to companies that make components that "wear out quickly" such as single use cruise missles. If the war drags on for a long period of time, I think the US will have more terrorists attacks. To counter this, we will probably go to face recognition security much faster than current plans, especially in the private sector where the ACLU doesn't have much power. This will be quite good for data base companies as well as anyone making camera chips (Agilent?) and other chips needed to do face recognition. Maybe your thoughts of selling now are why the put/call ratio peaked at 1.31 on Friday, a near record since 1997! I know I often get the feelings of "why risk any more?" which I often get at short term bottoms. You also were much more bullish earlier as you "shot your load" at higher prices and didn't do the "asset allocation" deal where we just keep buying in tiny chunks as the market goes lower. I've found that those who "market time" even at reasonable price levels, often get scared when the market goes against them. BTW, I found PEG very useful to not buy or add to positions on your list. The growth given was far too high to be sustainable for 5 or 10 years... at best I use 20% for MAX growth when I do my own PEG analysis as that is hard enough to keep up for 5 yrs. I have also had good, relative, success using Don's old PEG numbers as a guide with some TA. When AMAT or LRCX would get near a PEG of 3.0, profit taking was well rewarded. Then when the PEG was low, a buy of some shares was also rewarded. I've traded LRCX using that PEG where it would get well over valued compared to AMAT on PEG so I'd sell some then when it bungie's back to lower relative valuation, I'd buy some. Not perfect, but I found it highly useful. I miss having Don post those weekly numbers after he capitulated last fall (and bought, guess what? Real Estate!) Anyway, I appreciate your efforts to add to the discussion but I think doing it this way rather than even mentioning "politics" or "George Bush" is the way to go. Just too much emotion otherwise. Kirk