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

To: davesd who wrote (9684)	10/26/1997 9:13:00 PM
From: Steve Byers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

dave... I just tried to get an update on the hang seng... where is it in terms of volume and level?

To: davesd who wrote (9684)	10/26/1997 9:19:00 PM
From: Big Bucks	Respond to of 70976

Dave, Here we go again!! Good luck with the new job. Regards, BB

To: davesd who wrote (9684)	10/26/1997 10:38:00 PM
From: Steve Byers	Respond to of 70976

HK down 5% at 10:28 tonight...FYI

To: davesd who wrote (9684)	10/27/1997 2:08:00 AM
From: akidron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

i've been following at the discussion on this thread for over a year. i find what you have to say pretty refreshing in that it is not dogmatic (i have also read your stuff on the MTSN thread - a company that I thought AMAT might buy). i bought 1000 AMAT for the first time at 26 (pre split) and sold when a stop loss I had set for $100 triggered. i then watched nervously as the stock ran up to 108, fell then rebounded to 105, worrying that i'd left too much on the table. i had set the stop loss for two reasons. the first was emotional, i didn't want to be on holiday worrying about $74,000 of gains. the obvious question is, why would i worry? AMAT seemed to be a great company with leading edge products. the reason I was worried was that I felt the Asian markets were spinning out of control and could eventually destabilize the world economy enough to affect a growth stock like AMAT, by negatively impacting fabs access to capital if interest rates rise sharply (as they have in the Asian markets. for example in hong kong they have quadrupled in a week) and reducing their ability to borrow against there hyper extended worth. secondly i felt that the stock was overextended, and i was getting emotionally drained by the endless upgrades and the endless goal post extension being performed on this site. i mention all of this not to prove that I am some kind of genius, because believe me I had my disasters this year (most notably IFMX now E) but to add both the macro and emotional arguments to the industry specific ones that seem to flourish in isolation on this thread. the way i see it the bulls like tito, and kumer (before the ASCEND accident ) are quite right. If your wealthy and can afford the ride AMAT is a no lose place to be long term. however the bulls short term view has been terribly short sighted as of late. simply stated not every decline is a buying opportunity. stocks do and should respond to macro concerns that are fundamentally more important that whether or not intel has a good couple of months. anybody that says the turmoil in asia will not eventually effect AMAT is crazy. it already has. the cost of borrowing for chip manufacturers undertaking capital projects has skyrocketed. also the argument that AMAT will be unaffected because it's deals are negotiated in fixed dollars is ridiculous, because the fabs have to exchange ever more of there own declining currency to buy the dollars to pay AMAT long before they receive dollars for their latest and greatest snack. the mother of all push outs is a quite logical end to everything that is going down and if so we revisit '95 or worse. this however, is neither the beginning of end of the story, because it is only one possible scenario, and the bulls do have one very powerful and often overlooked argument that could help AMAT withstand a short sharp asian currency crises. this fact is that have become the steel mills of the 21st century - the starting blocks of development, and every developing nation wants one whether there is demand for its products or not. there will be terrific expansion of fab capacity in eastern europe, and possibly south america Israel and india, in fact anywhere that there is a reasonably educated, and poorly paid workforce, and loose environmental controls. so IMHO, as the thread sayings go, i believe that a true assessment of the situation goes like this. AMAT can and probably will sail through a minor crises, a beat expectations in november. It is even reasonable to believe that the stock will reach $60 THIS YEAR. however if the asian markets continue to collapse - by which I mean 20 or 30% from here, AMAT will fall very hard, very fast and our friend jumper will be able to by himself a whole new life. my personal view is that the market will recover this time and I bought my 1000 shares of AMAT back last week at 38 and purchased 20 contracts of November 37.5s on friday at 7/8ths, and I plan to double up on both the stock and the options if the stock hits thirty on the open later today. but I do so knowing that it is an extremely risky short to medium term bet. FYI the easiest place to get up to date reports on most markets (for free) is at bloomberg.com