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

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (12868)	12/30/2003 9:44:31 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95531

I can tell you for sure that MU is one of the last stocks to benefit in SOX sector rotation. I noticed this on two previous cycles. Why? The company is seen as a commodity play. It is not sexy. Today TSM and LSI are two other stocks in the group which really have not gained much ground on a relative basis. I guess investors believe that TSM needs a lot more business to really see a huge increase in profits. LSI, perhaps rightly, is seen as an overly diversified business without a core of strong profit growth. I think it is a fair assessment and I am long LSI for now. Essentially I believe your question was a very good one. If you believe that the SOX run is not over then you have to at least admit that those stocks that have gained the most so far may not outperform stocks like MU, LSI and TSM next year as they likely will catch up. They are much closer to book value. They carry less risk but like all other stocks in the group must be bought on dips. There is another dip coming! JMHO, RtS

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (12868)	12/31/2003 10:19:20 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95531

Don First and foremost, thanks so very much for posting your data each week. I find it very valuable and often pass it on to others. Your comment on being a good stock picker to get good results is an interesting one. I've had reasonable success by owning the bookends, Intel and AMAT, then buying the smaller companies that I understand and see management making gains to clean up past problems as well as gain market share in either established markets (LRCX) or new markets (UTEK). I also own Agilent in the sector. I've had the best year ever in my investment life this year up over 60% in my personal portfolio that is about 75:25 equities:fixed! I'm doing even better with my newsletter so I have that at 70:30 to go into 2004 with more gains locked in. I think much of my success has been aided by great discussions in this very forum. Thanks for being a good leader. FWIW, I like to show similar stocks in a quick glance like this stockcharts.com\|D\|C20 It is interesting how closely A tracks TER or how HPQ and NVLS struggle to digest major problem companies bought in the downturn (I dumped NVLS via selling SFAM which it bought and used the allocation dollars for more LRCX and was sure happy with the choice!) Look at the charts of INTC vs AMAT and you see decent corrections while LRCX hardly budged... LRCX has been such a winner this past year (as JYH and I have been suggesting) that it sure looks like this will continue into 2004 because it saw the least correction from its ramp. I'll stick my neck out and suggest LRCX is one of the fist to hit new highs but.... UTEK will probably get there first as it is barely 30% away from new highs. I am sure glad I didn't take the advice to "upgrade" UTEK at the bottom to some leaders that everyone knows are good companies. Not as much money to be made buying companies everyone already knows are great... If my hunch is right that Intel is going to buy UTEK LTP technology to bring 90nm into production... then UTEK could be a leader for %gains in 2004. Thanks again for your tables... maybe by the time Agilent is added it won't be such a good bargain! :) Happy New Year to everyone!