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To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (78795)1/29/2018 7:41:45 PM
From: Kirk ©2 Recommendations

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bull_dozer
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  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 95456
 
Ah.... more of the infamous "this time it is different." Please write this date down along with the current market levels with a link to your posts.
Elroy, Sam just wrote a post explaining why the business environment is different today than it was in the past. He makes a good analysis of why this so.
Other than Booze, smokes and perhaps now weed in its various forms, I know of NO product ever made that goes against the business cycle.

I remember in the 1980s when we started to replace mechanical switches in cars with transistors and MOSFETs.... my grandfather's fancy smancy car had a tube radio with mechanical push buttons to store different channels!
Having said that, neither you, I, Sam or others know what is really going to come to pass.
Not to be immodest....

but I do... eventually there will be more capacity than demand and many of our favorite companies will suffer major downturns.

Our semiconductor capital equipment makers usually see it first when companies stop adding capacity for current products and only spend for advance technologies to not be left in the dirt when the business cycle turns up again.

Then the buyers of our equipment start to fill their backorders, often learning that some have double or triple booked and this great demand they told about on conference calls turns out to vanish.

Then some of us start to write we wish we took MORE profits so we could buy more at the next bottom and not suffer so much during the decline.... while others just go away as they were over invested at the top and wiped out if using leverage.

This won't change. Some companies like Lam have done very well with outsourcing and selling services so they can often remain profitable but I remember the days the buy signal was when they took massive write offs for huge negative quarterly earnings.



To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (78795)1/29/2018 8:48:00 PM
From: Elroy  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 95456
 
Elroy, Sam just wrote a post explaining why the business environment is different today than it was in the past. He makes a good analysis of why this so.

You come back with the same argument you made previously.


No, that's not what happened. He asserted (with no proof) that Samsung Corporate will try to keep Samsung Memory prices high in order to make the competitors to Samsung Mobile suffer from those higher prices. I asserted (with no proof) that Samsung Memory will likely pursue the 50 year plan for Samsung Memory and the goals of Samsung Mobile will not be much of a factor in Samsung Memory's capacity expansion plans. In general, I'm pretty sure the various divisions of a conglomerate pursue their division specific goals (my view) and they are not directed by corporate to sacrifice their division specific goals in order to boost another different division (Sam's view).

In other words, I was disagreeing with one of the main components of his "good analysis" of the "new business environment". You for some reason decided to ignore what I wrote.

He also said previous cash was easy to come by. Today it's easy to come by as well.

He also said there are lots of "new" uses of memory, to which I replied "so what?". If the memory makers can supply the memory necessary for these new uses and do it profitably, then the memory makers all want to have as large a share of that market as possible. The growth of the industry and diversity of the application does nothing meaningful to reduce the memory makers' desire to gain future share.

If someone wants to claim that Micron and Samsung and SK don't compete with each other for DRAM or NAND slots on devices, then it's true, this time is different because there are no share gains to be had, they've segmented the market to where they will no longer compete for share. Is that the idea? if so, prove it.

None of these comments were - as you wrote - just repeating my previous argument: rather, they were pointing out why the view presented by Sam, well, doesn't hold up.

You are presenting a very simplistic economic argument.

Yeah, exactly. If Samsung can spend a billion today and expect to make 2 billion in three years, and/or they can spend 2 billion today and expect to make 3.5 billion in three years despite lower memory prices, and option two results in them being even more dominant in memory than the are today, they will choose option 2. So would you, so would I. So would SK and Micron.

If you are going to disagree with that very simple economic argument, you should explain why Samsung cannot possible choose option 2. It's impossible for them? Why?

Saying that there are a lot of new usages of memory and a lot more bit growth than in past years (really?), doesn't change my very simple economic argument.

My view is the investment community consensus view. Why else would MU have a 5x PE?

Everyone reading this thread knows your assessment. Fine, let's move on

I take this as you don't want to hear the bear case on the memory makers. Fine, I'm just chatting, I have no dog in this discussion. I didn't realize the board was getting overly cluttered with a few posts about the future of memory. Personally I think Gottfried's continual posting of the various charts and boxes of info that he maintains is a massive waste of time (who uses someone else's charts??), but that's just me.



To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (78795)1/30/2018 7:57:09 AM
From: dvdw©  Respond to of 95456
 
The build out of cloud, is precursor to AI being able to manage IOT, in 5G. Follow /stay with the path.



To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (78795)1/30/2018 11:47:33 AM
From: Kirk ©  Respond to of 95456
 
OK
Fine, let's move on.

In case you wish to reply or comment, In the spirit of moving on, I posted some more info at Message 31460995
Favorable article in Forbes has two of the three up... Finisar is up today while the overall market is down about 1% before tonight's SOTU (State of the Union) and rebuttal. Oclaro is also up but Micron can't get no respect as it is down about 3% today.
It seems Forbes has noticed that MU and FNSR are Rodney Dangerfields....