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

To: shane forbes who wrote (19445)	5/14/1998 9:42:00 AM
From: Lone Star	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

In the SEMI article, it states unit volume demand remains solid. That is what drives the equip. mkt. Even if the poor chip manufacturers are making less money, or even losing it, they need to spend or die. Someone is always using tough times to attempt to grow market share while their competitors are hurting. Unlike prior downturns, the move to smaller geometries and many new processes( Cu, low dielectric constany materials, CMP, ad infinitum) makes much of the installed base obsolete so non capacity adds become a signifigant portion of new purchases not just to isolated R@D sites but in more volume much faster. This is not to say things are rosy, not at all. But the downturn pain is certainly mitigated for the best playert, AMAT, while their competitors are hurting. There are far better candidates for puts and shorts than this company in my opinion- AMAT has a long history of exceelent reaction to downturns.