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

To: michael97123 who wrote (13689)	3/3/2004 6:58:18 PM
From: BWAC	Respond to of 95587

<What clipped the chips and equips today?> #1) The charts are pointed south, and they are in self fulfilling prophecy mode as the guru's and tea leaf readers drop daily innuendo to push in the prevalent direction. #2) Fundamentals and valuation do not matter in this Casino. See #1. See MAMA. See #3. See #4. #3) Some fund has a load of stock for sale or some group of traders is determined to sell a load they don't own. #4) Check Yahoo boards. The 5 post a minute crowd says KLAC is a POS and going to 40. Under attack ala 1999 style? #5) Somebody thinks the semi-equip and semiconductor cycle top is in. Or at least that they can convince a few million shares a day that the top is in. #6) Got to get some free cash in my fund so I can buy MAMA!!!! #7) See #6. Might as well throw some OPM at BABY too! #8) Worried that INTC PE is too high with a 30 cents quarterly run rate. #9) Worried that Bank of India might re-iterate its daily agenda at any given hour. #10) Fears that the economic recovery will once again be aborted. #11) Who knows? Seriously. This markIt has become so far devoid of anything fundamental or anything remotely textbook that any answer to any question is little more than a wild guess. ------------------------------------------------------- To me, valuations that were not attractive a month ago are attractive today. Actually they have been for awhile since each earnings report exceeded my expectations. I had expected lower earnings at current sales levels. I didn't expect earnings to be hitting this level until sales were 10 or 20% higher and later on in the year.

To: michael97123 who wrote (13689)	3/3/2004 7:19:04 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 95587

It is hard to know what to say about the current state of the market. A lot of cross currents out there. The market hasn't been able to decide which way it wants to go - Monday, the market thought everything was fine - Tuesday and Wednesday, not so fine - net result, sort of going nowhere or running in place. Here is Briefing.com's take on today's action: <<Close Dow +1.63 at 10,593.11, Nasdaq -6.29 at 2,033.36, S&P +1.93 at 1,151.03: [BRIEFING.COM] Judging by the market's closing totals, today's session was rather uneventful... While such an assumption would more often than not be misleading, it certainly sums up today's proceedings... To be exact, the market spent the entirety of the session chopping around without much of a trend as stocks' underlying bullish fundamentals were juxtaposed with valuation concerns, leaving participants hesitant to make a firm commitment to the market one way or another... Tellingly, volume totals were moderate at best with decliners outpacing advancers and down volume leading up volume by only a fractional margin... Putting aside today's uninspiring trade, which was largely a continuation of the trend seen through most of February, Briefing.com maintains its longer-term moderately bullish view of the market and thinks investors should exercise conservative investment techniques, but maintain exposure to the stock market... With the major averages ending the day near their respective session highs, the bulk of the sectors closed in positive territory, although significant leadership to the upside was difficult to come by... Laggards of note included the networking, semiconductor, metal mining, transportation, raw materials, and construction sectors... Separately, this morning's ISM Services report checked in at 60.8, below the consensus of 63.4, but well above the expansionary 50-point mark... The report's impact on the market was limited, though, due to its short history, dating back to only 1997... Elsewhere, the bond market was little changed, with the 10-year note closing down 3/32, bringing its yield up to 4.05%... NYSE Adv/Dec 1584/1678... Nasdaq Adv/Dec 1546/1596.>> As to what happened to KLAC, it is hard to say - I could not find anything negative said today about the stock, only the 2 upgrades already noted. I think the present malaise will pass, but when is another matter. Maybe we are doomed to wander around in this present relatively tight trading range until the earnings reports in April. At this point, it seems we have quite a bit of evidence that many mutual funds and institutions were lightening up on the semi-equips in January thinking that a peak in the cycle was about 6 months away. These "entities" more than likely still believe that situation and they will not be "buyers" for some time. To sort out the real truth as to what is going to happen to this cycle - peaking in 6 months or much further out - is going to take awhile to resolve. Don