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Technology Stocks : Etec Systems moving up -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carl R. who wrote (1006)	6/21/1998 2:06:00 PM
From: jeffbas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1279

Note that much of the reason for ETEC's financial progress is price increases not unit volume increases. PLAB has bought a UTEK product and a Leica product as well, I believe. If these products are competitive, it will be some time before they would be likely to take any material market share from ETEC. However, I think they would quickly reduce or eliminate ETEC's previous ability to increase prices at will. Then where does ETEC get growth from?? That is my major reservation about ETEC.

To: Carl R. who wrote (1006)	6/21/1998 8:02:00 PM
From: Dr. Bob	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1279

"SEG, WDC, etc are not exactly strong right now". SEG said the bottom has been reached. It is therefore logical to investors that they may soon be ordering lithography, poletrimming, and such equipt., and they are looking ahead. The disk drive sector entered its current doldrums before the semiconductor sector, and may well recover sooner. "All are showing some resistance to further down moves" - just my point. As opposed to most of the rest of the semi equipt sector, including ETEC, UTEK has shown resistance to downside moves. "they (SEG, WDC, et al.) are not trading at PE multiples anything like UTEK" - that's just not true - SEG, WDC and all are breaking even or losing money, so their P/E's are astronomical. SEG, for example, is projected to lose $.05 this fiscal year; WDC is projected to lose $.26. UTEK's P/E is lower, not higher than most of the disk drive sector. Some of UTEK's strength does come, I quite agree, from new products, but there is much uncertainty there. I reiterate that I think a good part of its strength comes from its dominant position supplying the disk drive sector, which, when it recovers from its current doldrums, will have to order more equipment, and UTEK will the the primary beneficiary. Bob