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

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (42839)	1/20/2009 7:50:23 PM
From: cluka	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95526

I must say that I am unsure of exact market share % and cost structure but on the face of it I would say that Pam is making an assumption that is not based on clear evidence. In Semi wafers, WFR is among the top 5 producers and in poly they have very modern facilities that are likely as efficient as anything competition has. They have no debt and absolutely no reason to be higher cost producers than any of the other big players. Hemmloc in particular is debt laden and I would be shocked to hear they are lower cost than WFR. I would not take Pam's statement very seriously.

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (42839)	1/20/2009 11:44:05 PM
From: Pam	1 Recommendation Respond to of 95526

Perhaps comparing WFR to INTC was a bit of a stretch, but I was only trying to point out they are a big company in their field. Below are a few excerpts from the latest S&P analysis of the company. Sure it is a big company with over a billion in Cash and current market-cap of over 3B dollars! But I standby my earlier comment that they have only 9-12% of the overall market that they serve and more importantly they are in a commodity market. Sub-Industry : Semiconductor Equipment Peer Group*: Semiconductor Materials Peer Group Symbol Market Cap(M) MMEC WFR 3,313 ATMI Inc ATMI 433 AXT Inc ATXI 38 EMCORE Corp EMKR 100 Entegris Inc ENTG 225 Hemlock and Wacker were never mentioned anywhere in the S&P analysis as competitors or in a peer group. Well, the list of stocks in S&P report are not WFR's true peers. Hemlock is a private company (2/3'rds owned by Dow Chemical and 1/3 owned by 2 Japanese companies) and Wacker is a German company.