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Technology Stocks : Micron Only Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TREND1 who wrote (27286)	1/28/1998 2:07:00 PM
From: Cynic 2005	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53903

Larr, from briefing.com: 13:20 ET ****** MICRON TECHNOLOGY (MU) 35 5/16 +2 15/16. The shorts continue to get hammered on this one. MU is the most heavily shorted stock on the New York Stock Exchange, with a total of 43 million shares, or fully 36% of its float, sold short, and the number has been increasing every week. Of course, the bears are their own worst enemy in this case. As of late, whenever a brokerage firm has made a positive comment on the stock, MU shares have raced higher on the session. Today was no different, when NB Montgomery Securities issued what is perhaps the most bullish outlook for chip maker since last summer. The stock has soared to intraday high of $35.75 following a dramatic hike in the company's 1999 earnings estimate by NB Montgomery Securities. The firm raised its forecast from $0.75 a share to $2.00 a share, a modest adjustment of 167%. Although we do not currently have details of the move, you can be sure that the rosier expectations are based on improving DRAM prices. Of course, everyone on the Street has their opinion on which way the commodity will move, and the numbers vary widely. Given that Micron is slave to DRAM prices, it is not a stretch to extrapolate analysts long-term forecasts for the commodity by looking at earnings estimates. 1998: High estimate= $0.26; Low est= $0.68; Mean est= $0.09; 1999: High est= $1.60; Low est= $0.40; Mean est= $1.07. To further put the crap shoot of predicting DRAM prices into perspective, remember that it was only five months ago when Merrill Lynch analyst Thomas Kurlak was a raving bull on Micron and predicted the company would earn $4.10 a share in 1999. Now, the analyst can't stand to see the ticker symbol come across his terminal, and currently has a downside price target of $20 on the stock, which was issued Jan 16, when the stock traded around $31.50. Despite the recent action in MU shares, I wouldn't count Mr. Kurlak out of this horse race quite yet.

To: TREND1 who wrote (27286)	1/28/1998 4:13:00 PM
From: Ed Beers	Respond to of 53903

Larry, In SDRAM, the bus interface is somewhat decoupled from the access time of core bit storage array. Any comparisons of SDRAM clock rate to EDO DRAM access time are misleading. The bus interface has little or no effect on the size of the chip or the cost to produce it. There was (past tense) a shortage of SDRAM because of some production bottlenecks (tester shortages, packaging tool shortages, and for some foundries, design shortages). These bottlenecks have been fixed so there is now price parity (+/-) a small variation) between FP, EDO, and SDRAM bus interfaces. Differences in contract prices between the parts are probably almost nonexistant. Spot market prices will vary more since they are whipped around by short term mismatches between supply and demand for the different types. Any thoughts on MU's ASP for SDRAM last quarter (presumably higher than $4.90) and their ASP for SDRAM this quarter?