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

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (52691)	7/9/2011 3:42:42 PM
From: Return to Sender	1 Recommendation Respond to of 95640

From Briefing.com: Weekly Recap - Week ending 08-Jul-11The stock market managed to squeeze out a modest gain during the holiday-shortened week despite disappointing employment figures. Trade was mixed with five of the 10 sectors within S&P 500 posting a gain. Cyclical sectors energy (+0.8%), tech (+1.6%) and materials (+1.3%) all outperformed. Telecom (-1.3%) and financials (-1.1%), underperformed as they have year-to-date (telecom is up 4.4% and financials are down 3.1% for the year). Retailers outperformed following solid same-store sales reports. Target (TGT) advanced 6.6%, Kohl's (KSS) climbed 6.5% and Abercrombie (ANF) gained 6.3%. The main item this week was the employment report for July, which disappointed on every front. Nonfarm payrolls rose a meager 18,000 (Briefing.com consensus +80,000); nonfarm private payrolls increased 57,000 (Briefing.com consensus +110,000); the unemployment rate rose to 9.2% (Briefing.com consensus 9.1%); the average workweek dipped 0.1 to 34.3 hours (Briefing.com consensus 34.4); and hourly earnings were flat (Briefing.com consensus +0.2%). Separately, nonfarm payrolls for April and May were revised lower, with the former month going from 232,000 to 217,000 and the latter month going from 54,000 to 25,000. The "real" unemployment rate, which factors for the total unemployed plus marginally attached workers and persons working part-time for economic reasons, jumped from 15.8% in May to 16.2% in June. That is tantamount to saying one in six workers over the age of 16 is either unemployed or underemployed. In overseas news, Moody's downgraded Portugal's debt to junk status and the People's Bank of China again raised its one year lending rate Asian markets ended the week higher while European shares posted modest losses. In commodity action, gold prices rallied 4.1% as the CRB Index gained 2.0%. The dollar also advanced--climbing 1.8% against the euro and 1.1% against a basket of currencies. Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD % DJIA 12582.70 12657.20 74.50 0.6 9.3 Nasdaq 2816.03 2859.81 43.78 1.6 7.8 S&P 500 1339.67 1343.80 4.13 0.3 6.9 Russell 2000 840.04 852.57 12.53 1.5 8.8 STMicroelectronics (STM) announced a new highly integrated SoC family with unique integration of comprehensive video and audio inputs, advanced video quality and expanded functionality. 3:24AM United Micro reports June sales of NT$9.186 bln; down 11.1% YoY; down 2.3% sequentially (UMC) 2.55 : 1:56AM Newport enters into agreement to acquire Ophir Optronics (OPHRF) for $8.43 per share; ~$230 mln (NEWP) 18.91 : Co announces it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ophir Optronics. The consideration to be paid by Newport is $8.43 per share, or a total of ~$230 mln in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2011. Co expects the transaction to be immediately accretive to its earnings following the closing. 10:07 am Multi-Fineline Lowers Third Quarter Revenue Guidance (MFLX) Multi-Fineline (MFLX $20.35 -1.38) lowered its third quarter revenue guidance to approx. $191 million, versus the previous guidance of $200 million to $220 million and consensus of $209.95 million. The company expects gross margin to be approx. 12%, down from prior guidance of 12% to 13%. The company said, "Primarily due to a reduction in demand from one key customer in the latter part of June, net sales for the third quarter were lower than expected. Although forecasting in the near term is difficult, we believe we have significant market share with our major customers and we expect net sales to increase on a sequential quarter basis in the fourth quarter due to higher seasonal demand." 09:59 am Ixia Lowers Second Quarter Guidance (XXIA) Ixia (XXIA $9.87 -3.14) lowers second quarter earnings guidance to $0.07 to $0.08, down from $0.14 to $0.17 previously, versus the $0.16 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. On the top line, the company expects revenues to fall in the range of $67 million to $69 million, down from $78 million to $82 million previously versus $80.16 million Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. The company said, "We are disappointed with our revenue performance this quarter, which was impacted by several factors, including delays and reductions in spending by certain large network equipment makers, a large wireless order received too late in the quarter to ship and soft sales in the Asia Pacific region, while we expected revenue from Japan to decline sequentially from the record first quarter, we experienced unexpected weakness in other parts of Asia Pacific, such as China and India. It is important to note that second quarter sales to our largest customer, Cisco, were strong at approximately $10 million. Additionally, we did see some encouraging trends in the quarter, including an overall book-to-bill ratio in excess of one, and we secured our highest booking quarter to date for our IxCatapult wireless solutions, some of which will be recognized as revenue in future quarters. These indicators give us confidence that we will return to sequential growth in the third quarter although we remain cautious about the overall spending environment." 09:54 am SemiLEDs Misses Third Quarter Expectations; Sees Fourth Quarter Guidance Below Consensus (LEDS) SemiLEDs (LEDS $5.69 -0.51) reported third quarter GAAP ($0.19) per share, $0.12 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.07). Revenues fell 43.4% year/year to $5.6 million versus the $6.3 million consensus. GAAP gross margin for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 was 9%, compared with 51% in the third quarter of fiscal 2010. Operating margin for the third quarter of fiscal 2011 was negative 70%, compared with 36% in the third quarter of fiscal 2010. Margins were negatively impacted by a charge of $1.1 million for the write-downs of inventory. For the fourth quarter, the company expects to see GAAP EPS of ($0.25)-(0.23) vs. ($0.03) Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees fourth quarter revenues in the range of $5.5 million to $6.5 million versus the $9.03 million Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; with a negative GAAP gross margin.