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.

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

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (19235)	5/9/1998 3:31:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 70976

2 News items that should bring a smile to the Bears: EBN INDEX DROPS INTO RED The U.S. electronics industry stopped growing in April for the first time in two years, according to purchasers polled for EBN's monthly Electronic Buyers' Index (EBI), formerly called the Quest report. The April reading for the seasonally adjusted EBI slipped below 50, the line that marks growth and contraction, for the first time since May '96. The index fell from 50.5 in March to 49.8 last month, Ismini Scouras reports in EBN. The culprits were inventory corrections, depressed exports to Asia, and weak prices. The inventories index, one EBI component, fell for the 3rd straight month, dropping to 45.4. Forecasters are still optimistic about business in the second half, since they believe the end of inventory workdowns and a recovery in Asia-Pacific and Japan will boost orders and production activity in the U.S. DILEMMA OF KOREA'S 'BIG 3' South Korea's big-three chip makers are between a rock and a hard point, as far as the president of Siemens Semiconductor is concerned. Unless they can use bailout funds provided by the International Monetary Fund, Samsung, Hyundai, and LG Semicon won't be able to continue developing quarter-micron processes, Ulrich Schumacher tells EBN's Jack Robertson. "There's no way these companies can finance the costly upgrading . . . unless they continue to be subsidized," he says. But that's something neither Schumacher nor the SIA wants to see. The Koreans claim they won't use IMF-backed funds, but Schumacher believes they "will be forced out of the DRAM market . . . if they don't upgrade quickly." Don't say I'm not even-handed<G>