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

To: Return to Sender who wrote (9253)	4/3/2003 7:53:42 PM
From: Return to Sender	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95652

From Briefing.com: Updated: 04-Apr-03 - General Commentary - Over the past several weeks Briefing.com has spent a considerable amount of time discussing the (likely) impact of the war on the sector/market. We've also discussed, at length, the potential hurdle to higher prices related to the soft economy and sluggish earnings growth. What we haven't spent much time focusing on recently is valuations. Briefing.com has maintained that while multiples have contracted considerably over the past few years, they're still relatively high given the slowing growth rate of a maturing tech sector. As the Nasdaq approaches its March highs, we thought now might be a good time to take a look at the valuations of ten leading technology companies. Those firms and their multiples are listed in the table below. Stock Price Curr Yr Est Est P/E Nxt Yr Est P/E P/S (TTM) Dell (DELL), 28.67 $1.00 28.7x $1.18 24.3x 2.03x Heward (HPQ), 16.36 $1.18 13.9x $1.46 11.2x 0.69x IBM (IBM), 81.91 $4.31 19.0x $4.90 16.7 1.68x Microsoft (MSFT), 25.73 $1.00 25.7x $1.08 23.8x 9.19x Oracle (ORCL), 11.62 $0.41 28.3x $0.45 25.8x 6.62x Intel (INTC), 17.57 $0.60 29.3x $0.80 22.0x 4.15x Tex Inst (TXN), 17.75 $0.39 45.5x $0.70 25.4x 3.68x Appl Mats (AMAT), 13.74 $0.14 98.1x $0.51 26.9x 4.21x Cisco (CSCO), 13.64 $0.57 23.9x $0.62 22.0x 4.98x Nokia (NOK), 14.96 $0.84 17.8x $0.94 15.9x 2.23x Basically, table confirms what Briefing.com has been saying all along with regard to valuations. They're no longer at the insane heights of the bubble era, but they're also nowhere near as low as is often the case at a bear market or cyclical bottom. One explanation for this is that investors have been slow to give up on the sector's growth potential, hanging on to hopes that it will experience another late-90s like boom. Ain't going to happen folks. There's no Y2K scare or Internet boom to drive the kind of wild IT spending which accompanied the boom period. In fact, it's hard to even identify the next "must have" product that will spark a spending surge of any kind. It can be argued that with many servers, computers, etc. now three to five years old, it will soon be time for companies to start replacing old, outdated equipment. Problem with that argument is that with profits under the strain of a soft economy, there's little incentive to replace equipment that generally still meets user needs. In other words, investors shouldn't expect the "e" part of the equation to improve drastically over the next 6- to 12-months. Consequently, valuations just one more reason why investors should approach the tech sector with caution at current levels. Robert Walberg, Briefing.com 4:31PM Virage Logic guides below consensus (VIRL) 5.81 -0.43: Company warns for Q2 (Mar), sees loss of $0.05-0.06 vs. Multex consensus of $0.01, revs of $9.4-9.6 mln vs Multex consensus of $12 mln. 4:13PM STMicroelectronics guides Q1 lower (STM) 19.73 -0.26: Co. sees Q1 revs "of $1,618 million, just slightly below the low end of its guidance range of $1,620 million." Says gross margin "should be around 35%, below the bottom of the previous guidance range of 36%." The Multex consensus estimate is for revs of $1,660 million. Co. says Q1 was penalized by greater-than-expected pricing pressure and the stronger Euro. 9:50AM Lam Research contract win would be slap in the face for AMAT : First Albany says that checks indicate TSM is going to use LRCX's (+0.9%) Teres product for 300mm copper Chemical Mechanical Planerization; as AMAT (-0.6%) currently dominates the CMP mkt, firm sees this win at TSM as a slap in the face for AMAT (TSM is a lead customer for AMAT) and leads them to believe that the industry is looking for a second source to AMAT's CMP technology; since firm believes LRCX's Teres product has some technical limitations, this should bode well for NVLS's CMP offering, which has some inherent advantages over those of AMAT and LRCX. 9:29AM Nasdaq technical levels : -- Technical -- From current levels, the index now faces modest initial resistance at 1411, followed by much more significant overhead in the range of 1419 to 1423 -- recall that four-point range brackets the September 11th-induced reaction lows, which bottomed at 1423, as well as the reaction lows back in October 1998, which bottomed at 1419. To the downside, look for initial support in the vicinity of 1400, followed by a subsequent floor at 1392. 8:53AM Advanced Micro upgraded at JMP Securites (AMD) 7.00: JMP Securities upgrades to Strong Buy from Mkt Outperform based on: 1) an expected return to profitability faster than consensus forecasts, 2) positive news flow regarding potential design wins/support for its Opteron 64-bit server processor, and 3) expected mkt share gains in Flash memory; raises price target to $10 from $7. finance.yahoo.com^SOXX+ALTR+AMAT+AMD+ASYT+BRCM+INTC+KLAC+LLTC+LRCX+LSCC+LSI+MOT+MU+MXIM+NSM+NVLS+STM+TER+TSM+TUNE+TXN+VIRL+XLNX+^IXIC+^NDX+^SPX+^VIX+^VXN+^STI.N+^STI.O+SMH&d=t RtS