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

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (12400)	11/5/2003 8:14:40 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Respond to of 95420

A synopsis of today's action in the chip area. <<National Semi gains as chips recover By Chris Kraeuter, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 4:52 PM ET Nov. 5, 2003 SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Chip and hardware stocks made a modest reversal to close mixed Wednesday while National Semiconductor rose to its highest level in three years after boosting its financial targets. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX: news, chart, profile) closed up 1 percent to 519.4 while the Goldman Sachs Hardware Index ($GHA: news, chart, profile) ended unchanged at 254.2. National Semi (NSM: news, chart, profile) said late Tuesday it expects sequential second-quarter revenue growth of 7 to 10 percent, surpassing its previous target range of growth between 4 and 7 percent. With its new targets, National is targeting revenue between $454.5 million and $467.3 million for the quarter that ends Nov. 23. The analog-chip maker said orders have been strong across several of its product lines. See full story. Analysts had predicted, prior to Tuesday, sales of $449 million and earnings of 28 cents a share, on average, according to Thomson First Call. Shares rose 4 percent to $44.09. The stock began the year at $15.01. Most other chip stocks seemed unaffected by National's announcement, but AMD (AMD: news, chart, profile) did gain 2.8 percent to $17.01 and Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM: news, chart, profile) stepped up 1.9 percent to $11.64. AMD hosts a public analyst meeting on Thursday beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern. Elsewhere, research firm In-Stat/MDR held its 2003 global semiconductor growth forecast steady at 16.7 percent to $164.2 billion, with a 10.9 percent increase in unit shipments and a 5.3 percent pricing improvement. For 2004, In-Stat/MDR said global chip sales could rise 25.9 percent to $206.8 billion, which would be an industry record. Intel (INTC: news, chart, profile) shares were flat after the company announced the development of new transistor materials to stop electrical leakage, a major hurdle to the construction of smaller and smaller microchips. Intel did not specify the material, which won't be put into production until 2007. Texas Instruments (TXN: news, chart, profile) said it has made similar progress on the leakage issue and has planned an announcement for December, according to the Wall Street Journal. Among computer hardware stocks, McData (MCDTA: news, chart, profile) rose 3.8 percent to $10, slightly recovering from dropping to a six-month low earlier in the week. Most computer manufacturers failed to make progress on Wednesday with Gateway (GTW: news, chart, profile) down 1.8 percent to $4.93, Dell (DELL: news, chart, profile) off nominally to $36.11 and Apple (AAPL: news, chart, profile) up only 12 cents to $23.03.>>