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Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Investor2 who wrote (5246)	5/2/1998 7:56:00 PM
From: shane forbes	Respond to of 10921

Mmm... good point. I actually was out Feb - so I really have not missed the entire 50%. And I could be totally whacked and miss the entire move up from here - an unmitigated disaster. --- However I was never in those stocks (AMAT excl. and that was a long time ago). I have a strong disposition towards the smaller less popular stocks and if you check the ones I was in - SVGI, HELX and COHU (which I sold for 23, 23, and 43) in Feb. or thereabouts you will see that they are at 19, 20 and 35 now. Thus they are not exactly in recovery mode (yet). --- I think with many of the big caps in the semi-equips the large funds have taken positions and this may be a case of a feeling that the big boys will weather things better than the rest. Or else a lot of liquidity that has no where else to go. Don't know. --- Not even sure if last month's 0.80 was primarily because of a Japan FY perturbation. So this month may see an increase. However I do think the last month of any q is usually the strongest q (I'll check) and if so this does not bode well. I also think the US logic companies very suddenly announced reduced cap. exp. in just the last 6 weeks or so and I do think this has yet to show up in the BTB. Taiwan (AMAT's big hope) is also down for the count now. So very tough for me to see what the basis of those increasing prices is. After all we have Internet stocks being considered safe havens in this market. Speculation rages on. --- Granted the original collapse in around Dec. may have been an overreaction. However I suspect these stocks may be in a trading range for awhile. And granted with signs that unit demand is still strong the chip cos. may all suddenly go on a spending binge (I think utilization is very high) but everything I see about announcements from the smaller semi-equips point to at least another few quarters of pain. Since in a full blown recovery I expect the little guys to show improvements in business conditions as well I therefore think that there is something amiss underfoot. DRAM and processors account for about 2/3rd of chip output and with both of these areas showing severe cap. ex. reductions it is tough for me to see where the semi-equips are going to get their orders from. --- Shane.