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

To: The Ox who wrote (10062)	6/10/2003 5:47:58 PM
From: The Ox	Respond to of 95541

Even chip-equipment stocks recovered from early declines induced by negative chatter from two investment-bank analysts. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX: news, chart, profile) added 1.1 percent, while the Goldman Sachs Hardware Index ($GHA: news, chart, profile) edged up 0.5 percent. Banc of America Securities analyst Mark FitzGerald downgraded Applied Materials (AMAT: news, chart, profile), KLA-Tencor (KLAC: news, chart, profile), Novellus (NVLS: news, chart, profile) and Lam Research (LRCX: news, chart, profile) to "neutral" from "buy" and Credence Systems (CMOS: news, chart, profile) to "sell" from "neutral." "We are not optimistic that the earnings power of the semi-equipment group into 2004 can sustain the current rally," FitzGerald wrote in a note to clients. "After outperforming the market in the first half of the year, we'd expect the group to track the market for the balance of the year." Also, analyst Stuart Muter with Adams, Harkness and Hill downgraded 17 of the chip-equipment stocks he covers. "While the semiconductor business is no doubt improving, inventories are building and demand remains tenuous," said Muter. "A second-half disappointment, then, is also quite possible." Applied and KLA-Tencor recovered to eke out gains, while Brooks Automation (BRKS: news, chart, profile) lost 3 percent and Lam Research (LRCX: news, chart, profile) slumped 1.6 percent. Elsewhere among semiconductor companies, an Infineon (IFX: news, chart, profile) and IBM (IBM: news, chart, profile) joint venture updated investors on progress related to a new kind of memory technology known as magnetic random access memory, or MRAM. IBM and Infineon said they are targeting production-ready chips in 2005. According to a statement, MRAM combines the storage capacity of DRAM, the speed of SRAM and the memory retention of flash. Infineon shares rose 10 percent to $10.72, while IBM edged lower. Also, Vitesse Semiconductor (VTSS: news, chart, profile) said it would buy Multilink Technology (MLTC: news, chart, profile), a maker of optical networking semiconductors, for $22.9 million in stock, or 4.2 million Vitesse shares. Vitesse shares rose 3 percent to $5.22, and Multilink jumped 12 percent to $2.75.