Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geoffrey Wren who wrote (3577)	11/26/1997 2:58:00 PM
From: John Dally	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10921

Hi Geoff, As finances go, as lenders and chip-makers look and see expensive plants in Korea and elsewhere that cannot generate cash flow to amortize their sunk costs . . . I don't think anyone will invest in new production facilities if they can't make a profit. Here's the price trend for DRAM: smithweb.com Here's the latest spot price: pweb.aix.or.jp Every manufacturer will bleed until enough producers are driven out of business! IMO, the prospects are rather bleak for semi equipment manufacturers. Best Regards, John.

To: geoffrey Wren who wrote (3577)	11/27/1997 11:05:00 AM
From: geoffrey Wren	Respond to of 10921

Consider prediction of future demand for equipment a game of chance. Is it a game like football or blackjack with half the deck already dealt, where you need to study the past, or it it a game like dice, where any apparent patterns are meaningless to what you should predict for the future? With slow innovation, future demand for equipment would clearly depend on current production capacity, and is like re-thinking betting a football team after the quarterback is injured. But with rapid innovation, I think the better analogy is to blackjack where the deck gets reshuffled every hand. This is not to say that construction of plants will not be slowed now to general panic, so in that sense studying the past is relevent. A market timer probably will be sitting on the sidelines now. But also, having a sense of future demand for end product is relevent. For the underlying long term demand, if anything this current oversupply in memory chips may be good, in making things cheaper for the consumer, and extending the extent to which consumers become familiar with technology now. Is it not the case that more people having computers now translates into more people buying computers in the near future? Off for the weekend, Geoff Wren