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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas Haegin who wrote (889)	1/15/1998 6:19:00 AM
From: Stitch	Respond to of 9980

Thomas, Headline:ASIA-Crisis expected to curb U.S. profits in 1998 contextual quote: <<Even so, certain kinds of technology companies are a special source of concern after a slew of fourth quarter and 1998 profit warnings from key sectors such as disk-drive makers like Western Digital Corp. and Adaptec Inc. "We have disaster after disaster in the disk-drive industry, with nearly every company in it forecasting lower earnings," First Call's Hill said.>> IMHO Mr. Hill better pull out his head before he sits down and breaks his neck. Fact is, except for some currency hedging losses there has been little ill effect on drive makers resulting from the Asian crisis. In fact, it has helped more then it has hurt, in the form of lower wage costs. Disk drive makers and their suppliers shot themselves in the foot with way too much capacity and fiscally irresponsible competitiveness. Here is a fact: In Asia alone the disk drive industry has completed or started over 10 million square feet of new factory space during the last 24 months. In my opinion a slowing of buying in Asia has yet to fully hit the PC (and therefore the disk drive) makers. We still have that to face. Isn't interesting that HMT Technology, a disk maker, and one of the few companies who chose not to expand in Asia, has just recorded a record quarter and exceeded earnings expectations? Thats partly because they managed their growth, plain and simple. Best, Stitch