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Technology Stocks : Ultratech Stepper -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dogman who wrote (1844)	12/12/1997 10:03:00 PM
From: Justa Werkenstiff	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3696

Well, on December 10, 1997, the day after my conversation with the company, UTEK rolled over and started sinking like a stone even more so. What happened on December 10th? Seagate announced a plant closure in Ireland and pushed out another in Northern Ireland. Quantum pre-announced same day. Ditto for WDC last week. Remember, UTEK sees front end weakness in TFH. TFH should be approximately 60% (including micromachining which should be 10% to 12%) of revenues this year for UTEK. Art Z saw this as a short term problem in the last cc and saw a nice recovery in the next few quarters. Not particularly good guidance given the events of this past week. Art Z voiced concerns over the lithography business (we learned) in SEMICON Japan although nothing is showing up on his sonar screen on the UTEK helm at this time. But look to the second to last paragraph of my post.... Result: UTEK gets a barrage of depth charges because the diversification strategy of having two main businesses (TFH and lithography) play counter-cyclical to one another backfires when both businesses have negative (TFH - front end) or unclear visibility (lithography) short term despite the new product lines (P-Gild, Ultrabeam and pole trimming) in both businesses long term. Mr. Market is focused on this holiday season and not the promises for the 1998 one. Oh, BTW, earlier in the week Mr. Oracle said, after he couldn't get away with the currency explanation, that the reason (buy into it if you choose) for his shortfall was slow Asian business, even though his company only gets 15% of its business from there by one accounting. So, if such a relatively small exposure of business to Asia can create such a shortfall for Oracle, what does it do for UTEK that has approximately the same percentage of revenues (15% backlog -- 21% bookings last quarter) from SEA? You say: unfair comparison. Mr. Market is not a fair guy all the time. Sometimes he is too generous; other times he is a cheap SOB. I think he is feeling a little stingy this holiday season. Word has it he is dining with Mr. Short on Christmas day. Mr. KLIC was certainly no Santa's helper either. He was feeling pretty sure of himself a few weeks ago at the AEA conference. But he did for UTEK on December 11th that the DD sector could not finish on December 10th. He said he could not deliver on a "Sleep n' Snore Ernie" promise for the analysts. Dive... dive ... batten down the hatches ...UTEK goin' down in (the) SEA. Annual Report: "The Company's business and financial results for a particular paeriod could be materially affected if an anticipated order for even one system is not received in time to permit shipment during the particular period. Furthermore, a substantial portion of the Company's net sales has historically been realized at the end of each quarter. Accordingly, the failure to receive anticipated orders or delays in shipments near the end of a particular quarter, due, for example, to unanticipated shipment reschedulings, cancellations, delays or deferrals by customers" ya-de ya-de ya ... well I think you all know where I am going with this one.