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

To: Return to Sender who wrote (10760)	7/31/2003 12:46:10 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95471

RTS, this can't be good for tomorrow. I'll check the futures next, Stan. Japan Stocks Down; Toshiba Hits NEC 1 hour, 2 minutes ago Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo! story.news.yahoo.com By Daniel Hauck TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese stocks fell around one percent on Thursday morning, as Toshiba and Fujitsu continued to plummet after releasing disappointing earnings, dragging down rivals such as NEC and Hitachi ahead of their own announcements. The Nikkei average ended the morning down 1.04 percent at 9,532.43, tacking on to a 2.05 percent fall on Wednesday, when techs took a beating from Toshiba Corp's poor earnings a day after a disappointing outlook from Fujitsu Ltd The broader TOPIX index was down 1.05 percent at 934.36. The overall market was relatively flat for the first half of the morning, but falls in tech stocks soon picked up speed after a series of rating downgrades by Goldman Sachs and others on Toshiba sent it plunging further in late morning trade. Toshiba was down 9.35 percent at 417 yen, adding to an 8.37 percent dive on Wednesday. The firm shocked investors that day by posting a bigger quarterly loss from a year earlier, hurt by falling prices of notebook computers overseas. Fujitsu also continued to fall after its disappointing half-year forecast on Tuesday, dropping 5.16 percent to 496 yen. "Toshiba, Fujitsu and the like had been bought up on recovery hopes, but now many tech firms are displaying the ending of a recovery boost from restructuring," said Tatsuyuki Kawasaki, director of equities trading at Kaneyama Securities. "From now the focus for Hitachi and the like that will be reporting is whether they are going to be able to generate growth in sales -- if they forecast flat or dropping sales from Q2, they could see shares sold off." Fujitsu and Toshiba put pressure on fellow chip and computer conglomerates NEC Corp and Hitachi Ltd ahead of those firms' earnings announcements. NEC was down 4.53 percent at 716 yen, while Hitachi eased 4.3 percent to 534 yen. Panasonic products maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd also dropped for the second-straight day after five consecutive winning sessions, retreating from early gains to end the morning down 1.7 percent at 1,386 yen. The world's second-largest consumer electronics maker fell 5.37 percent on Wednesday, weighed down by profit-taking on its quarterly results and overall bearish sentiment after Toshiba's earnings. Traders said its Thursday drop was due to quarterly earnings results that had been solid, but a bit below expectations. RICOH SOUGHT Despite the spat of disappointing first-quarter results, some market players were still relatively positive on the tech sector. "The stance of the companies is different this year from last, when their outlooks were very gloomy, and there were so many questions about where their growth was going to come from," said Atsuto Sawakami, fund manager at Sawakami Asset Management "Most of the full-year forecasts still look very realistic, and we can still hope that some can surpass them -- that's a world of difference from last year, when everyone, the companies and investors included, knew it was pretty much impossible." A standout among techs was Ricoh Co Japan's second-largest office machine maker rose 4.61 percent to 2,155 yen after its record quarterly net profit on Wednesday. "Buyers are returning to areas in which selling might have been a bit overdone yesterday," said Yusuke Sakai, manager of equities at Mizuho Securities. Investors also snapped up other firms with solid earnings. Janome Sewing Machine Co Ltd, Japan's largest manufacturer of household sewing machines, firmed 8.49 percent to 115 yen after posting a 113 percent rise in group net profit to 230 million yen ($1.91 million) for the April-June quarter on Wednesday. The overall market was also supported by window dressing on the last day of July, a process in which asset managers adjust their portfolios before the month ends by selling stocks that have fallen and buying ones that have gained. Other key firms set to report on Thursday include quarterly results from top brokerage Nomura Holdings Inc and office machine maker Canon Inc, which will be reporting half-year earnings. Trading stayed active in the morning, with 547.07 million shares changing hands, compared with 569 million on Wednesday morning. Decliners far outnumbered gainers 1,006 to 367.