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 : QUANTUM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BuySide who wrote (7055)	1/16/1998 10:42:00 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9124

BuyS, Will go to CHS thread for info on it--look forward to reading about it. As for this cycle--first of all, don't feel too badly, not too many people actually saw it coming (there was speculation about something coming, but not any specifics). This one is different from the past cycles that I have seen. At first (last spring/summer) it looked like it was confined to the high end, the result of SEG's long dominance and other companies' new products attempting to encroach, therefore more of a company specific problem. Then the fall crash came in two incredibly quick strikes, amid *growing demand*. That is what threw most people off, I think. Certainly threw me off. I didn't expect the influx of supply to be as sharp as it was. In any case, this quote from Jim Porter is a pretty good one: "Boom and bust cycles are nothing new for makers of disk drives. Unlike past profit slumps, however, there is no diminution in demand for the devices, which are used to store data in all types of computers." "Disk/Trend Inc., a market-research firm in Los Altos, Calif., estimates that unit shipments of all types of drives grew 20% to 126 million units in 1997 from 105 million in 1996, and will hit 149 million in 1998. "We have a nicely growing industry," said Jim Porter, the firm's president." If he is even close to being right, that means that next year there will be an increase of 23 million drives, or about 6 million drives per quarter. That is, a company nearly the size of Quantum will be effected added to the demand side. How that gets divvied up, and at what price, are, of course, the questions. Best, Sam