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Technology Stocks : IDTI - an IC Play on Growth Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Woody_Nickels who wrote (8301)	5/11/1998 12:40:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11555

Here's some news that warns of a slow down for semis and semi equip stocks: From EBN/Semi News: <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." > The liquidity problems that the Koreans and other Asian market whores face will eventually turn around to benefit fiscally conservative US and European semi companies. It should help lead to a lessening of price pressures and a more rational return on capital and R & D investments.