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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cymeed who wrote (10732)	11/29/1997 8:50:00 PM
From: Apple12	Respond to of 25960

Off subject: A post I found not sure if it has been posted here! Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research, a San Jose firm that tracks the semiconductor-equipment industry, reckons that investors have been handed a buying opportunity. The biggest concern for the equipment sector, Hutcheson says, has been the potential for a slowdown in demand from Taiwan, which recently has snapped up about 15% of global chipmaking gear, up from 11%-12% a year ago. "People think Taiwan has overbuilt, that they'll crash," he says. Most of what the Taiwanese chipmakers produce, though, ends up in goods sold in the U.S. and Europe -- not Taiwan or Hong Kong or Malaysia. > Not only that, but Hutcheson believes the drive by Taiwanese chip producers to build market share will overshadow their profitability concerns. "They'll spend whether they make money or not," Hutcheson contends. "People tend to overlay an American bottom-line orientation over Asian economies. It's the same mistake we made during the Vietnam War." > The real issue for the Taiwanese, Hutcheson says, has been how they'll fund their insatiable demand for chipmaking gear. Hutcheson says some U.S. equipment leasing firms, including Comdisco and General Electric's the purchase of high-priced hardware used in chip-making plants. The bottom line, Hutcheson says, is that the sound and fury over the Asian crisis signifies nothing for most chip-equipment firms. Concludes Hutcheson: "We've looked at it closely, and we see no significant effect." > Hutcheson expects global chip-equipment sales to grow 21% next year, up from just 5% this year. In 1999, Hutcheson predicts, sales growth could hit 30%, propelled by the chip industry's move to parts with smaller and smaller lines, first 0.25 micron from the current 0.35 micron standard, then 0.18 micron in subsequent years. Hutcheson, it turns out, is nearly as optimistic about overall chip demand, forecasting revenue growth of 22.3% in 1998, up from 9.3% this year. "If I were in the business of recommending stocks," he says, "I'd be recommending buying across the board." > Carl Johnson, editor of Infrastructure, an E-mailed newsletter which tracks the equipment sector, says he's heard no reports of canceled orders related to the Asian crisis. Johnson expects investors to come away from this week's American Electronics Association financial conference in San Diego feeling more confident about the sector -- he's been buying Applied Materials, Teradyne and KLA-Tencor, and some smaller equipment makers, like Cohu, SpeedFam International and SubMicron Systems.