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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John E. Rylander who wrote (9577)	10/25/1997 9:45:00 PM
From: Big Bucks	Respond to of 70976

John, If I may comment. Your questions are good and may be true for long term (2-4 years) investment. But short term (<1 year) I think Dave is right on the money! The odds are that, yes, if you invest in AMAT you will make money on your investment at some point, but why pay more than you have to for the privledge. The Semi industry is very cyclic and susceptible to lots of economic influences that determine the profitability of chip makers, such as competition, new/better technology, excess capacity, and market demand, for a few. The reason for chip manufacturers to produce is to make money, and they do this until the economics dictate a change in product mix or the requirement for a new technology to surpass the competition. FYI, Intel and Microsoft are the 2 biggest stocks on the Nasdaq, if they are having economic troubles that will ripple thru the associated industries that support them, as they are perceived to be the measurement of health of the industry. Demand for chips will continue to increase, unfortunately, the profits and margins of companies that are producing them are decreasing due to competition and current excess capacity in key technologies like memory and CPU's, the two biggest money makers. AMAT is a healthy company and will continue to dominate the equipment industry for years to come, but their performance is directly tied to the health of the industry which is questionable for the short term. Just my opinion, good investing! BB