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

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (43708)	3/12/2009 8:31:31 PM
From: Return to Sender	1 Recommendation Respond to of 95598

From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Following a sluggish start, stocks put together an impressive performance in which the S&P 500 advanced more than 4%, providing participants with a solid follow through from Tuesday's 6.4% rebound. This session's positive tone was inspired by better-than-expected retail sales data, renewed buying interest in bellwether General Electric, and more encouraging news from the financial sector. Better-than-expected retail sales data suggested consumers haven't completely rolled over. February retail sales declined just 0.1%, which is better than the 0.5% decline that was expected. Excluding autos, retail sales increased 0.7%. A decline of 0.1% was expected. Meanwhile, January total sales and sales less autos were revised to show an even larger increase. The upbeat retail sales data comes in the face of ongoing consumer headwinds, such as mounting job losses. Weekly initial claims climbed 9,000 to 654,000, which was worse than expected. Continuing claims jumped nearly 200,000 to 5.32 million, which was also worse than expected. In other economic news, February business inventories declined 1.1%, which is essentially in-line with the consensus estimate. Participants had little in the way of corporate headlines to digest until Standard & Poor's disclosed they lowered General Electric's (GE 9.57, +1.08) credit rating one notch to AA+ from AAA. However, the downgrade became widely expected, so investors already priced in the bad news by sending shares to multiyear lows in recent weeks. That allowed shares to rebound once the bad news was released. Financial stocks took their cues from GE. Financials had been down more than 2% in the early going, but rallied to close with a 10% gain. Bank of America (BAC 5.85, +0.92) was a primary leader among financials. According to Dow Jones, the company stated it was profitable in the first two months of the year and the company doesn't believe it will need more government capital. Financial stocks were also helped by hope a congressional subcommittee will suspend mark-to-market accounting rules, though no definitive statements have been made from the committee's meeting. Stocks closed at session highs, capping three straight sessions of gains. During that time stocks have advanced nearly 11%. That is the best three-session performance since stocks rallied from their November lows, which where stocks are now trading.DJ30 +239.66 NASDAQ +54.46 SP500 +29.38 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2210/2.15 bln/495 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2839/1.81 bln/261 4:13PM STEC Inc misses by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides Q1 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (STEC) 6.20 +0.07 : Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.05 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 worse than the First Call consensus of $0.08; revenues rose 7.4% year/year to $56.9 mln vs the $56.5 mln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.10-0.12 vs. $0.05 consensus; sees Q1 revs of $58-60 mln vs. $45.92 mln consensus. 8:03AM ReneSola reports wider than expected loss, revs in-line; guides FY08 revs in-line (SOL) 2.27 : Reports Q4 (Dec) loss of $1.84 per ADS, $0.41 worse than the First Call consensus of ($1.43); revenues rose 65.2% year/year to $158.6 mln vs the $157.7 mln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for FY08, sees FY08 revs of $650-700 mln vs. $666.50 mln consensus. Co expects 2009 full year wafer shipment of between 620 MW to 670 MW. The co has pre-sold output of approximately 550 MW of wafers out of the 620 MW to 670 MW projected output for 2009. The co expects to achieve wafer manufacturing capacity of 825 MW by July 2009 with the implementation of additional production capacity expansion to be determined by market demand. "Looking ahead to 2009 and beyond, we believe that although the solar industry is experiencing short term demand weakness, the declining ASPs and other production costs along the solar value chain are improving end-user affordability and should ultimately increase demand for solar generated electricity. We remain confident that we can continue to reduce production costs while improving operational efficiency to stay ahead of the competition." 8:01AM Suntech Power and 3rd Rock announce strategic alliance to develop 7.2 MW of solar projects in the US (STP) 6.28 : The cos announce that they have established a strategic alliance in connection with the development of an initial 7.2 MW of solar systems in the United States. 3rd Rock will act as project developer and leverage existing relationships to raise project financing. For projects developed under the alliance, Suntech will be both the preferred supplier of solar modules and provide engineering, procurement and construction services through its wholly owned subsidiary, Suntech Energy Solutions. 09:40 am LDK Solar downgraded to Sell at Soleil; tgt $3: . Soleil downgrades LDK to Sell from Buy and sets target price at $3 saying they expect further large write-offs over the next 6-9 months which could cut tangible book value in half. 09:37 am Intel upgraded to Buy at AmTech Research; tgt raised to $17: . AmTech Research upgrades INTC to Buy from Neutral and raises their tgt to $17 from $13 as they believe the market has yet to price in the co's serious attack on new revenue sources, including Larrabee (GPU) and non-core PC embedded computing and SoC opportunities.

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (43708)	3/12/2009 10:07:39 PM
From: robert b furman	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95598

Hi G, Been missing on SI as work has been incredibly stressful and slow. Working long and hard and in the black I'm pleased to report - many not so fortunate. Texas is indeed a good market for GM and their full size trucks. Just an interesting note,IBD industry group rankings have believe it or not been very positive for the semis and the equipment makers - OK in a relative way: Semis: This week 16 3wks ago 96 6wks ago 94 7mos ago 35 Semi Equip: This week 86 3wks ago 122 6 weeks ago109 7 mos ago 95 Can't help but think I've been hunkered down too long. Semi's in the top 20 - who'd da thunk it? Bob