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

To: Czechsinthemail who wrote (13664)	3/2/2004 9:05:39 AM
From: Return to Sender	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95383

From Briefing.com: 8:08AM FLSH initiated at TWP with Outperform and $27 target 19.86: Thomas Weisel initiates M-Systems with an Outperform and a $27 6-month price target, based on 32x CY05E EPS. M-Systems has benefited from a leadership position in the USB flash drive market, which enjoyed spectacular growth in 2003, and is likely to enjoy exceptional growth over the next several years. Its Mobile DiskonChip product also enjoyed rapid market acceptance in 2003. The firm believes the co is well into developing a new removable card for the mobile handset market. 8:01AM MU upgraded at Soundview 15.35: Schwab Soundview upgrades Micron to Outperform from Neutral and raises their target to $21 from $13, citing stronger than expected volume commitments for Q2; firm also notes that contract prices are trending upward and inventories remain below buffer safety levels. 7:59AM Avanex files registration statement covering 8.8 mln shares (AVNX) 5.05: Yesterday, we incorrectly stated that company had registered 8.8 mln shares under its existing shelf. 7:42AM Applied Micro to acquire 3ware for $150 mln (AMCC) 6.64: Company signs a definitive agreement to acquire 3ware for approx $150 million in cash and will assume stock options based on an exchange ratio to be determined at closing. The deal, which extends AMCC's presence into one of the fastest growth segments in storage - Serial ATA RAID, is expected to close at or around April 1, 2004, and is therefore not expected to affect AMCC's March qtr results. 7:32AM Hewlett-Packard announces largest printing services deal in company history (HPQ) 23.00: Co announces its largest-ever imaging and printing services contract, signed with Ford Motor. The contract builds on HP's Total Print Management wins first announced last October, which now amount to more than $650 mln to date. The agreement affects a total of 150,000 users and optimizes a fleet of printing systems in excess of 15,000 devices in the US and Europe. 7:31AM Qualcomm increases quarterly dividend by 43% to $0.10 (QCOM) 62.75: The increase raises co's annual dividend yield to 0.6%. 7:29AM TXN upgraded at BofA 31.02: Banc of America upgrades Texas Instruments to Buy from Neutral, raises their 2004-05 EPS ests slightly above consensus, and raises their target to $37 from $32; firm believes the improved pricing environment for semi components will generate greater gross and operating margin leverage in 2004-05, and also says checks suggest that the risk of an inventory overbuild in Q1 is now much lower. 7:12AM Fairchild Semi raises prior guidance (FCS) 26.65: Co now expects Q1 revenue to be 3%-5% higher than Q4, which computes to $380-$388 mln vs Reuters Research consensus of $383 mln. Fairchild had previously guided 1% to 4% sequential revenue growth. Demand remains broad-based with particular strength in the consumer end market, where bookings are tracking well above Q4. finance.yahoo.com On ISIL fundamentally we are talking about an analog semiconductor manufacturer with zero debt that just barely missed on hitting estimates last quarter. This may be because the company is bringing out numerous new products that hopefully will be more profitable in the future. Here are the Briefing.com notes from Jan 29: 3:09PM Intersil (ISIL) 25.98 +1.03: Intersil reported Q4 EPS of $0.17 on revenue of $136.1 (+8.4% Y/Y) vs. Reuters Research consensus at $0.18 on $137.03. Gross margin improved 632 bps Y/Y to 56.7%, powered by growth in the Elantec products group. Operating margin improved 1084 bps Y/Y to 20.8% as management decreased SG&A expenses in absolute and relative terms. Guided for Q1 EPS of $0.18-0.19 on revenue of $136-138MM (-0.1 to +1.4% Y/Y) vs. consensus at $0.18 on $135.54MM. Gross margin is expected to come in at 57%. Intersil (ISIL) 26.31 +1.36 : CIBC upgraded Intersil Corp to Sector Outperform from Sector Perform and introduced a 12-month tgt of $32; says co reported in-line 4Q sales and EPS, but provided a more bullish outlook; notes that momentum appears to be building with bookings up 20% and book-bill greater than 1; also says shares have lagged peers for 2 quarters as co transitioned into an analog pure play; Intersil trades at a discounted 22x firm's new $1.12 CY05E EPS vs. peers 28x. CIBC believes meaningful upside exists in the name. ISIL is seeing strength across product groups and geographies. Power Management revenue (47% of sales) increased 21% Y/Y. Elantec revenue (28% of sales) increased 51% Y/Y on strong sales of laser diode drivers for DVD recorders and TFT buffers. Standard Analog revenue (25% of sales) increased 5% Y/Y. Demand for standard analog products began to accelerate in October and remains strong. The company will begin reporting quarterly results in Q1 by end-markets rather than product group. The new reporting format is intended to highlight the high growth end markets in which the company competes: Computing (28% of Q4 sales) will include desktop, server and notebook power management products and DDR memory. Communications (26% of Q4 sales) line drivers, broadband and hot-plug power management products and converters for DSL, home gateway and VoIP products. High end consumer (20% of Q4 sales) will include optical storage and video display products, handheld power management products and standard analog drivers for the DVD recorder, LCD TV, smartphone and digital still camera markets. Industrial (26% of Q4 sales) will include the Elantec family of operational amplifiers, multiplexers and standard analog products for the medical imaging, energy management and factory automation. Q4 marks ISIL's transition into a high performance analog company. Shares are pricing in sustained high teens growth and 37-38% operating margin. We think the company can achieve long-term revenue growth at least in line with the industry (high teens to 20%), and margins closer to high performance analog peers (gross margin of 70-80% and operating margin of 35-45%). Management is targeting near-term gross margin of 58-62%. Growth drivers include 1) a number of desktop power management design wins in Q4 that will begin production in Q1, 2) handheld power management design-ins that will begin production in early Q2, and 3) a number of new products within the standard analog interface and switch families. Margin drivers include manufacturing efficiencies as sales volume ramps, the high margin nature of the high performance analog business, the gradual transition to outsourced manufacturing (00C0 currently manufacturers 70% of products in-house) and operating efficiencies. We think there is upside of 20-30% from current level and would accumulate a position over time.--Ping Yu, Briefing.com Wish me luck! RtS