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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fortinwit who wrote (18890)	4/20/1998 12:19:00 AM
From: Sparky65	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Anyone, I am new to this thread but have been tracking AMAT for quite a while. Before the stock started to drop back in October, many were talking about how the semiconductor equipment stocks were going to do so well because of the new technology transition. I saw analyst reports that had AMAT at $150 to $200 a share (Before recent split). They felt that companies were going to have to move to this new technology in order to keep competitive. If the technology transition is going to truely happen, does'nt AMAT stand to gain the most, assuming they are still considered the leader in their industry? Personally, I believe that even in the though times, the leaders still seem to bring in the numbers and grow the business. Don't quote me on this, but, I think that AMAT has been trading at a PE of 35+ for the last couple of years up until the October correction. Now it is substantually lower. The earnings estimates have already been butchered by 25%+. How much more can be taken out. The situation we are in now reminds me of when the stock went from $75 down to $20 in 1996. Then all of a sudden in 9 months the stock was trading at $110 again. I believe that will happen again with this stock. Maybe not as fast as before. But, with new technology and good product diversification, AMAT will bounce back and bounce back big, again. Incidentally, it seems like the asian crisis has only affected some companies. The "leaders", however, do not seem to be getting hit as hard. I personally don't think that we will see AMAT hit $26 again. Usually these stocks move 6 to 9 months ahead of the market. And, I think that the whole asian uncertainty is already priced into the stock. After all, it has been almost 6 months since this crisis started. Is there something I am missing here? I would appreciate any comments from people who are bearish on this stock and why.