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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (10341)	6/10/2004 11:09:57 PM
From: matt dillabough	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Applied: Trade probe related to Jusung patent dispute - CBS MarketWatch.com

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (10341)	6/11/2004 8:22:40 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

2034: A Computing Odyssey news.com.com Futurist Jakob Nielsen asserts that home computers will have microprocessors running at 3 petahertz (300,000 gigahertz) that have a petabyte's worth of memory, a billion gigabytes of storage and a 250-gigabit broadband connection.

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (10341)	6/11/2004 10:30:07 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25522

Approaching peak of chip cycle unnerves investors Friday June 11, 9:54 am ET By Christopher Borowski and Nathan Layne AMSTERDAM/TOKYO, June 11 (Reuters) - The chip cycle is expected to peak this year and investors are busy deciding which industry stocks to dump and which ones are worth holding onto as a possible supply glut threatens to offset strong demand. The industry has been red-hot in the recent months, as growing demand from computer and other makers of tech gizmos pushed chip makers to boost production, in turn benefiting the producers of machines that churn out semiconductors. But the Philadelphia Semiconductor index (Philadelphia:^SOXX - News), which includes some of the biggest names in the sector, dropped to its year-lows in May and is still down eight percent from 2004 highs as investors fear the upswing may not last too long. Even with semiconductor revenues expected to grow by as much as 30 percent this year, some analysts are already pointing to stocks that could suffer as the market peaks. Earlier this week, the Semiconductor Industry Association forecast a 28.6 percent growth in chip sales this year, to be followed with only a 4.2 percent rise in 2005 and a 1 percent drop in 2006. At the same time, Goldman Sachs downgraded the world's top two contract makers of semichips -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) (Taiwan:2330.TW - News; NYSE:TSM - News) and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) (Taiwan:2303.TW - News; NYSE:UMC - News) -- concerned about inventory build-up and aggressive investments in new factories. "Tightening foundry capacity utlisation and improving visbility are driving up capital spending at foundries and buffer inventory at foundry customers, both signs of a cyclical peak," Goldman analyst Donald Lu said. SELL-OFF HAS STARTED Some investors seem to agree, with TSMC shares down 20 percent since late April, despite reports of record monthly sales, as big investments and subsequent oversupply could lead to sharply lower chip prices and, hence, profits. Other market watchers have warned that expectations of a much lower 2005 chip growth forecasts would also hurt chip equipment makers, as cautious chip producers could pull orders at the first sign of a slowdown. "If demand drops, real or perceived, the equipment market boom will be over before it really got a foothold," a technology consulting firm The Information Network wrote in a report. Ahead of the last demand peak in 2000, chip producers built up capacity only to see sales plummet, hurting prices and pushing the entire industry into its worst-ever downturn. But not everyone is concerned that the sector will plummet into another severe decline. Some analysts say this time around the burnt producers are more cautious and should manage capacity much better into next year. They blame the share price retreat, at least partially, on wider fears over the economic situation and spike in oil prices. The key question is not just if the sector will over-invest, but also if the electronics industry continues the current healthy uptake of chips for computers and new products such as digital cameras, advanced mobile phones and DVD recorders. If demand for chips remains strong, then a downturn sparked by oversupply is far off, they said. "We think the supply side of the equation still looks benign," said Merrill Lynch semiconductor analyst Dan Heyler. Heyler said one key indicator, capital expenditure as a percentage of sales was estimated at 21 percent, while he considered 25-30 percent to be a danger zone. Many chip producers remain upbeat about their prospects, with industry bellwether Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) raising its quarterly revenue guidance earlier this month citing better-than-expected demand for flash memory chips used in mobile phones. Intel shares are up 11 percent since the beginning of May.

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (10341)	6/11/2004 11:51:52 AM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

The article in Money indicated that the statistics were incomplete. "Incomplete" puts it mildly. Flawed comes to mind. It should be used in the next edition of "How to Lie with Statistics". At least BLS' program manager is quite candid about some of the defects of the survey. Siegel said his survey would not indicate if an employer is setting up an overseas unit, then slowly cutting the domestic work through attrition or layoffs of less than 50 people at a time. It also wouldn't indicate if a company stops using a U.S. contractor for a service or product and starts using an overseas contractor instead. "If they (the U.S. contractor) lay off people because of that, I wouldn't pick that because they're not the ones shifting work," he said. [emphasis mine]http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/10/news/economy/jobless_outsourcing/index.htm In fact, that is the normal progression with offshoring. Even if you were to accept the finding that mass layoffs from work going offshore resulted in just 2.5% of total layoffs in quarter, the survey results were not even crosstabulated to the extent of revealing any quantitative or qualitative measure of the specific jobs that were lost, the lost wages, or the importance of these jobs to the overall economy. Perhaps if the survey had been outsourced to India, it might have been far more thorough and been done at less cost. But don't take my word for it. You be the judge. Here's the report: bls.gov Sam

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (10341)	6/11/2004 12:51:25 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

The model for what will eventually happen to white collar jobs is what happened to blue collar jobs. No new manufacturing industries arose to replace the lost manufacturing jobs. We manufacture goods worth more today then we did 50 years ago or 40 years ago or 30 years ago or 20 years ago, and I'm pretty sure thats also true about 10 years ago. We may employee less people to create the goods but that is more a sign of increase in productivty then it is a sign that we are getting are clocks cleaned by foreign competition. If you consider "outsourcing" a continuation of the process that exported US manufacturing, then you can't help but "see how US absolute standards have declined due to outsourcing". Except that American living standards have not declined. reason.com (BTW what exactly is the limit on what is considered politics. This subject has not been a partisan political debate but its strickly speaking not about AMAT) Tim

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (10341)	6/11/2004 5:24:21 PM
From: Sampat Saraf	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Cary, 1. I think the data is not inflation adjusted but I would venture to guess that even after inflation adjustment it would show a positive gain in hourly wage rates but not as dramatic. 2. I agree that there are flaws in the study but I am not sure if they would change the conclusion of the study. For example, Sam's contention that contractor may have moved the jobs overseas and may not be included in the layoff due to offshoring statistics goes back to what consisted the sample which was surveyed. If the contractor himself was included in the study (e.g., EDS, IBM or Accenture) and they moved the work offshore, it would make its way into the statistics. 3. When I say software has been "commoditized", I mean the field is widely known and any excess "economic value" from that product has been wrung. I don't mean that software developers no longer require as much skill as before. In fact, I never thought that skill level required for most software jobs was that much higher to justify the wage rates they once commanded. That was an economic opportunity created by the "bubble" and is getting "wrung out" over time. In 1999/2000 period, computer professionals with 6 month diploma were drawing higher incomes that hard core engineering PhD in non-software related fields that did not make the software professionals any more skilled than other engineers. It was just economic opportunity and is getting erased due to bubble deflation. 5. "... US families have more, less expensive electronics, but many fewer have health care". IMHO, this actually supports outsourcing as the electronics industry uses outsourcing heavily while health care industry does not. If health care was also outsourced heavily, more Americans would be able to afford it. Outsourcing in health care field could have been increased by: a. Allowing foreign prescription drugs to enter US, b. Allowing treatment of patients with expensive ailments abroad by the insurance carriers as well as by medicare. {BTW, please somebody yell if we are getting too much off-topic here}