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To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (24082)	11/13/1997 10:30:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 53903

Taiwan's TI-Acer To Scale Down Chip-Plant Expansion As Prices Fall Dow Jones Online News, Thursday, November 13, 1997 at 11:28 By Russell Flannery Staff Reporter HSINCHU, Taiwan -(Dow Jones)- Texas Instruments-Acer Inc., one of Taiwan's largest semiconductor makers, will scale down spending on new capacity amid a drop in international computer-memory-chip prices and unexpected losses this year, a senior executive said Thursday. TI-Acer's board of directors at a meeting last month decided to delay $470 million of spending on equipment for manufacturing chips at a new facility in Hsinchu, said Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho. The company won't consider spending the money until market conditions improve, Ho said. The change in plans hasn't been formally announced by the company, a specialized maker of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM. TI-Acer is 48% owned by Taiwan computer industry leader Acer Inc. and 33% by Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN). The move to slow increases in production capacity comes after a plunge in the average spot price this year for DRAM, the most widely used memory chips in the personal computer industry. Taiwan is the world's third-largest maker of personal computer equipment and one of the five largest makers of semiconductors. Average DRAM spot prices have declined from about $9 to $4 in the past six months, said Ho. New pressure on prices resulting from a decline in the Korean won against the U.S. dollar in recent weeks makes it difficult to say where the market will bottom out, Ho said. South Korea is one of the world's largest makers of DRAM chips. "We think that prices won't recover in the coming few months," Ho said. TI-Acer forecasts a 1997 loss of 1.87 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$60.3 million), down from an initial forecast made earlier this year of net profit of NT$660 million. TI-Acer isn't the only specialized Taiwan DRAM maker to be suffering from low prices. Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp., an affiliate of Taiwan's largest semiconductor manufacturer, said in a statement Thursday it will cut its forecast of 1997 net profit by more than 20%. Vanguard is 27% owned by Taiwan semiconductor industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., whose chairman Morris Chang in Singapore on Thursday predicted that chip prices may continue to decline for as long as eight months. Even though it will delay the planned purchase of new equipment for its number-two plant, TI-Acer said last month it will spend $400 million to improve its production technology at an existing facility, Ho said. As part of that project, the company will phase out processing of six-inch silicon wafers in favor of eight-inch ones, and narrow the width with which it can slice chips to 0.28 microns from 0.35. The changes will lower average production costs and increase competitiveness, analysts said. The new spending will also allow TI-Acer to produce relatively advanced 64-megabit chips. It produces only lower-capacity 16-megabit chips. That shift to relatively advanced products will help reverse losses at TI-Acer, according to the company, which last month predicted net profit in 1998 will total NT$2.6 billion. With an improvement in its financial results expected next year, this year's lower chip prices and losses aren't likely to hurt the company's current bid to list its shares on Taiwan's Over-the-Counter Securities Exchange, said Ho. TI-Acer has said it expected to list its shares before the end of April 1998. Copyright (c) 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Companies or Securities discussed in this article:

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (24082)	11/13/1997 11:01:00 PM
From: MR. PANAMA (I am a PLAYER)	Respond to of 53903

SB...I am contemplating buying puts on ML and letting you secretly asking the SEC to peek a boo at things.....Holy Cow I am getting so excited at being a bear...every stock can be a target.... Looking forward to see if all the channels avalanche about their new found topic TENSION IN THE MIDDLE EAST..has some index fever...... Looking at those OEX 870 PUTS Ballooning....hahahahahah hahahahaha

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (24082)	11/13/1997 11:18:00 PM
From: Tim McCormick	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 53903

PC sales slowing? techweb.com Tim

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (24082)	11/14/1997 3:31:00 AM
From: DavidG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53903

Skeeter, << david thinks that txn went up 3 points on the tk's downgrade. nope, txn tanked more than 12 points on thye downgrade b/c the big boys knew it was coming before it hit the street. duhhhhhhh... >> TXN still when up 3 3/4 points when his downgrade came out. It could have gone down further and it didn't. Tom Kurlak was not taken seriously. You have your head in the sand if you can't see that.:-) DDDDDUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good Luck Trading DavidG