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Strategies & Market Trends : Electronic Contract Manufacture (ECM) Sector -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kolo55 who wrote (1146)	1/21/1998 10:37:00 AM
From: Pierre	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2542

Paul: I read your comments regarding SANM. My broker listened to conference call and his take was the same, no growth and diminished margins. I expected to see the stock stagger this morning, but instead it's running. Do you think so much downside expectation was in the price that a flat Q is reason to rejoice? I will say that it appears they continue to move up-market in terms of product mix. Also, apparently a rather seamless integration of elexsys was impressive. I'm curious your take on the company, and the short term outlook on the stock given this performance. Also, is Asia behind us (I'm not talking fear factor here, but actual reduced demand) or are we just beginning to see the real impact in this sector? Pierre

To: kolo55 who wrote (1146)	1/21/1998 4:06:00 PM
From: rich evans	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2542

Paul and All, On the way to work today, a thought crossed my mind which I don't think has been discussed and that is the "coming together" possibilities of the board makers and board assemblers. DIIG of course does both and has a business plan to be fully integrated one stop shop. I think 18castra has not been in favor of that business plan indicating it lacks synergies. HDCO though is now doing assembly in the backplane area representing 15% of revenues. ALRN does both backplane assembly and makes it own boards which it uses primarily for its assemblies. PGTZ has a model" one stop shop" model and is now the largest design company in the U.S. according to press releases but does no assembly. Plexus is focusing also on design but does not make boards. These companies talk about OEM's coming to them with a concept and they ddo the total design, prototype and them of course the volume work. Why not follow up with the assembly business? Does anyone think the industry could be headed this way? And does it create investment opportunities from some combination of these companies? I know I am hoping someone grabs SFLX to bail me out. Anyway this is what happens when you mosey along the lake on a rainy day to get to work. Rich

To: kolo55 who wrote (1146)	1/24/1998 12:50:00 AM
From: jeffbas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2542

Paul, I have on more than one occasion - most recently on the ACTM thread today, expressed my view that the Asian situation may not be all peaches-and-cream for those of our favorites with operations there. It has been a very hard sell. Why? I note that the leaders have all had their 30-50% rallies after earnings and are pulling back quite a bit. (SLR has acted better, probably because of positive "surprise" of NCR deal.) The action is pretty consistent with bear market rallies - where the leaders rally, while the others do next to nothing. Any other ideas of what is going on? Is this whole thread missing something fundamental like, when things get tough, maybe ECM companies are more overflow producers than we thought?