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Strategies & Market Trends : Three Amigos Stock Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sergio H who wrote (4663)	5/11/1998 8:09:00 PM
From: Ditchdigger	Respond to of 29382

To be honest,I'm a bit concerned over somewhat flat earnings(4th Q(97) 10M --1st Q(98) 10.4M),but guess this should/could be expected after all the acquisitions last year(4-5).But IMO things will work out fine. Should get an announcement on June 10(shareholder meeting) of the completion of the most recent 1998 acquistions. These are the 2 that have me excited,both are aerospace suppliers in the public and military markets. Boeings news of re-wiring can only have a positive effect for CADE,QUST and ATPX IMO. The problem of aging aircraft is again being brought to the public eye---YEA!!..DD

To: Sergio H who wrote (4663)	5/11/1998 8:46:00 PM
From: freelyhovering	Respond to of 29382

Sergio--Looks like GBUR is getting ready for the Seinfeld rocket boost with some prelaunch activity. I would not be surprised to see it hit 20 by the time this week is over. IMHO as a non-Seinfeld fan. Myron

To: Sergio H who wrote (4663)	5/11/1998 8:57:00 PM
From: Sandra	Respond to of 29382

Sergio, Heres an interesting company....RESY biz.yahoo.com Earnings were out today: May 11, 1998, Reconditioned Systems Inc. announced Mar. 1998 fourth quarter earnings per diluted share of $0.12 vs. $0.06 for the same period a year ago. Annual earnings of $0.51 vs. $0.16 for the same period last year. biz.yahoo.com I dont own this stock, but it looks like they are getting things in order now. Used to be a 20.00, I noticed on the 5 yr. chart. Sandra

To: Sergio H who wrote (4663)	5/11/1998 10:50:00 PM
From: Ken W	Respond to of 29382

Sergio, Good move..spare the computer restriction, spoil the child..Wish my father would have learned that..his was knock-em out. Did I hear someone say AIRM? or ATPX-----Finally!----maybe----hope so. Ken W

To: Sergio H who wrote (4663)	5/12/1998 12:56:00 AM
From: ACAN	Respond to of 29382

Hi Sergio Here's a stock with improving price and fundamentals that might interest the Amigos LPAC - Laser Pacific. -just completing a cup formation from June/96. -4thQ 97 .18/share, and company infers 1stQ just as good. -close today 2 7/32. LPAC is in the high defn film mastering and finishing for cinema and now TV. Received awards for technical excellence and recently built state of the art laboratory. Reducing debt per recent news of sale of Vancouver finishing company, to be completed end of May. Soft 2nd and 3rd Q are expected to be much stronger than usual due to less reliance on reruns and demands for new film material. Thread and news on SI. Possibly someone has already brought LPAC to the Amigos attention. If so, pardon the duplication. Good trades Allan

To: Sergio H who wrote (4663)	5/12/1998 1:03:00 AM
From: Phil Jacobson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29382

amigos/amigas, Re: SUPX Great company for the sector they're in but next few months could be rough as 30% of revenue is from Asia. Article below from TheStreet.com is about AMAT but also applies to SUPX. Predicts the bottom for the sector to be July quarter. Phil ====================================================== Spring Hope Is Eternal: Applied Materials Watchers Hope for a Strong Summer By Eric Moskowitz Staff Reporter 5/11/98 7:10 PM ET When Asia's economic crisis was just starting to catch the attention of Wall Street last fall, the CEO of Applied Materials' (AMAT:Nasdaq), James Morgan, promised that the entire affair would be but a blip on the company's radar screen. Analysts believed him, telling investors the semiconductor-equipment sector would improve by the spring. The picture is a lot different today than Morgan had anticipated. Hit by the persistant Asian slowdown and domestic pricing pressures, the sector looks like it will have a tough time recovering anytime soon. But hope springs eternal and analysts are once again insisting that the semiconductor industry's performance will improve this summer. But can investors -- especially value players salivating over the sector's underpriced gems -- believe them this time? Take Applied Materials, the world's largest semiconductor-equipment maker. Since the October tech sell-off, AMAT is up a modest 9% (see chart), but that hasn't stopped 21 of 28 analysts from giving the stock a buy rating. It seems they are under the impression that if and when the sector turns around, it will be led by bellwethers such as this Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of wafer-fabrication equipment. After nearly every chip-equipment maker -- including AMAT -- warned that earnings would be less than anticipated in the March quarter, it will be interesting to see what AMAT's management says about its prospects when it reports its second-quarter earnings after the close Tuesday. First Call consensus calls for AMAT, whose fiscal year ends in October, to earn 37 cents a share. (Of course, the company's IR department said that TSC could only listen to a delayed broadcast of the conference call on Wednesday, so a timely report on it will be hard to do.) The company should be able to meet or beat these reduced earnings numbers, and many analysts see the stock as a best-of-breed value play. Salomon Smith Barney analyst Milind Bedekar started coverage on AMAT with a buy rating a week ago, stating that investors should stick with the sector's bigger names. Bedekar believes that AMAT is cheap trading at 18 times 1999 earnings and is about to hit bottom. "We believe that the April and July quarter bookings will be the trough bookings for the current cycle and expect the next round of earnings cuts to be the last," Bedekar wrote in his report. (Bedekar's firm did not participate in any of Applied Materials' public offerings.) "Equipment stocks typically react 3-to-6 months prior to the change in the industry's fundamentals," notes Bedekar, who has a $49 price target on the stock. "And with supply-demand improving in the late second half of 1998, we expect AMAT's stock to appreciate in the July-to-October time frame." Analyst optimism, however, does not explain how the company is going to combat a low-margin PC environment and a decline in capital spending from key chipmakers such as Intel (INTC:NYSE). "This has been the third year of lousy performance and we are seeing the same inventory excesses we saw back in 1993 through 1995," says Edward Hemmelgarn, president of the hedge fund firm Shaker Investments. "I don't think we are going to be seeing strong revenue growth until 2000 or even 2001." Hemmelgarn, who has no current position in AMAT, adds that he is buying the semiconductor "device" stocks such as Xilinx (XLNX:Nasdaq) and Linear Technology (LLTC:Nasdaq) because he believes they will come back faster than the equipment makers. Recently, AMAT said that it was using intermittent company-wide shutdown days to cut costs, including closing every other Friday over the next few quarters. Layoffs, which the company said would never happen, are now a very real possibility. Do these developments augur a quick recovery? Soundview Financial Group analyst Michael O'Brien doesn't think so. "They should meet or exceed these reduced consensus estimates this quarter, but we are still in the decline period for the sector," says O'Brien, who has a short-term hold on AMAT. "I wouldn't be surprised to see some upgrades Wednesday, but who knows about Taiwan, or even what Japan is going to do." O'Brien, who worked at Applied Materials for more than 4 years before moving to the sell side, believes the company will only have 1998 annual earnings of $1.35 a share, well off the Street's average of $1.48. "Even with my past affiliation with the company, I'm one of the biggest bears on the Street," notes O'Brien. (His firm didn't participate in any of AMAT's public offerings.) O'Brien adds that many analysts have been pointing for a bottom in June, but now he believes the sector may not bottom out until the first or second quarter of 1999. "The bulls are beginning to come down to where I'm at right now," says O'Brien, pointing out how annual earnings estimates have fallen from $2.15 to $1.48 since last November. "I look at the near-term future for these equipment stocks as not too great." So do investors. The main semiconductor index -- the SOX exchange in Philadelphia -- was down 6% Monday. Since AMAT is closing in on its quarterly earnings, which are expected to meet or beat reduced earnings expectations, its stock was up 1/2 to 37 1/4.