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Technology Stocks : FSII - The Worst is Over? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Dancy who wrote (2059)	7/3/1998 3:09:00 PM
From: Alan Gallaspy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2754

Joe, Your post For the first six months of 1998, stock funds rose an average of 11.7 percent, compared with a 17.7 percent gain in the S&P prompted me to take a look at what my portfolio did from 1/1/98 to 6/30/98. Damn. Guess I should be in an S&P index fund, as I was a whopping 10.1% for that time. Got my butt whipped semi-equip as 3 of my 5 bottom performing stocks were in that sector (Mattson, PRI Auto, and Brooks Auto). Fortunately, Pfizer helped offset some of that loss with a throbbing 43.6% gain over that period. I never can seem to get the timing down for this group. I will just have to keep trying till I get it right.

To: Joe Dancy who wrote (2059)	7/3/1998 5:15:00 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Respond to of 2754

I updated the table on institutional holdings from DailyStocks this morning. The following are the results sorted by percentage holdings from highest to lowest. The three numeric columns are also added and averaged. For a few of these stocks at the top of the list, there isn't much room for the average public to buy and sell these shares. Maybe another way of saying it is that the public is at the mercy of the institutions to set the prices. # PERCENT SHARES INSTITNS INSTITNS OUTS HOLD HOLD SYMBOL COMPANY (000) SHARES SHARES ETEC Etec System 22,063 238 97 LRCX Lam Research 38,219 246 90 CMOS Credence Systems 21,649 160 87 TER Teradyne 83,510 449 87 NVLS Novellus Systems 33,835 280 84 KLAC KLA Instruments 86,873 579 80 IPEC Integrated Process Equipment 17,712 150 80 SVGI Silicon Valley Group 32,590 152 70 EGLS Electroglas 19,704 145 69 WJ Watkins Johnson 8,253 110 67 ASYT Asyst Technologies 12,019 138 67 ASEC Aseco 3,715 31 64 FSII FSI International 22,849 84 62 KLIC Kulicke & Soffa Industries 23,312 204 60 AMAT Applied Materials 365,627 989 60 PLAB Photronics 24,397 190 57 IMSC Integrated Measurement Systems 7,544 33 57 BRKS Brooks Automation 10,113 74 57 MASK Align-Rite International 4,876 35 55 VECO Veeco Instruments 8,966 88 54 SFAM SpeedFAM 15,950 147 53 PRIA Pri Automation 19,608 186 51 HELX Helix Technology 19,832 146 50 AFLX Adflex Solutions 8,826 59 50 GSNX Gasonics 14,046 54 50 LTXX LTX 35,334 76 49 ATMI ATMI Inc 18,178 129 47 SFLX Smartflex Systems 6,374 22 46 COHU Cohu 9,705 90 42 CFMT CFM Technologies 7,931 78 40 UTEK Ultratech Stepper 20,889 121 34 MICN Micrion 4,063 25 27 CYMI Cymer 28,850 136 26 PHTN Photon Dynamics 7,271 18 24 WFR MEMC Electronic Materials 40,511 91 23 DPMI Dupont Photomasks 15,169 101 18 ASMLF ASM Lithography Holdings 138,000 235 18 TGAL Tegal 10,566 25 16 MTSN Mattson Technology 14,480 22 15 SMTL Semitool 13,789 49 14 NANO Nanometrics 8,610 18 14 AVERAGE 31,849 151 51 Another way of looking at the data is to sort by the number of funds holding the stock from highest to lowest. # PERCENT SHARES INSTITNS INSTITNS OUTS HOLD HOLD SYMBOL COMPANY (000) SHARES SHARES AMAT Applied Materials 365,627 989 60 KLAC KLA Instruments 86,873 579 80 TER Teradyne 83,510 449 87 NVLS Novellus Systems 33,835 280 84 LRCX Lam Research 38,219 246 90 ETEC Etec System 22,063 238 97 ASMLF ASM Lithography Holdings 138,000 235 18 KLIC Kulicke & Soffa Industries 23,312 204 60 PLAB Photronics 24,397 190 57 PRIA Pri Automation 19,608 186 51 CMOS Credence Systems 21,649 160 87 SVGI Silicon Valley Group 32,590 152 70 IPEC Integrated Process Equipment 17,712 150 80 SFAM SpeedFAM 15,950 147 53 HELX Helix Technology 19,832 146 50 EGLS Electroglas 19,704 145 69 ASYT Asyst Technologies 12,019 138 67 CYMI Cymer 28,850 136 26 ATMI ATMI Inc 18,178 129 47 UTEK Ultratech Stepper 20,889 121 34 WJ Watkins Johnson 8,253 110 67 DPMI Dupont Photomasks 15,169 101 18 WFR MEMC Electronic Materials 40,511 91 23 COHU Cohu 9,705 90 42 VECO Veeco Instruments 8,966 88 54 FSII FSI International 22,849 84 62 CFMT CFM Technologies 7,931 78 40 LTXX LTX 35,334 76 49 BRKS Brooks Automation 10,113 74 57 AFLX Adflex Solutions 8,826 59 50 GSNX Gasonics 14,046 54 50 SMTL Semitool 13,789 49 14 MASK Align-Rite International 4,876 35 55 IMSC Integrated Measurement Systems 7,544 33 57 ASEC Aseco 3,715 31 64 TGAL Tegal 10,566 25 16 MICN Micrion 4,063 25 27 MTSN Mattson Technology 14,480 22 15 SFLX Smartflex Systems 6,374 22 46 NANO Nanometrics 8,610 18 14 PHTN Photon Dynamics 7,271 18 24 AVERAGE 31849 151 51

To: Joe Dancy who wrote (2059)	7/4/1998 4:33:00 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2754

Joe, As usual, you have pointed us to some good articles on market performance. The doom and gloom mind-set in the semi-equips has really gone to extreme. As you conclude in your post, better times are ahead for undervalued small cap stocks - the valuations are just too compelling here. To show just how bad the situation is, I am posting the table below. I have presented the basic table before, but this time I am sorting on the comparison between Thursday's closing price and the high made by each stock in 1995. First, some comments about the results of the comparison. Adding up the columns gives a sum of 1148 for the group in 1995 and 598 for the same group last Thursday (for purposes of this comparison, the last three stocks in the table are not used - they were not listed in 1995). The entry at the bottom of the fourth column shows this difference to be -48 percent. When the recovery comes, the group will have to gain 92 percent just to equal the group high set in 1995. The situation is even worse comparing Thursday's close with the highs set in 1997. At the bottom of the table, the difference is -60 percent. This will require a group gain of 148 percent to get back to the 1997 level. While I believe the group is getting close to the bottom, this may not be the case. It may just be my wishful thinking. We recently had 8 down weeks in a row, followed by one up week of 6 percent and then last week with a loss of 2 percent. I will "guess" that this "bouncing" along of the group performance will continue for quite a few months yet. Whether or not the "bias" will be to the upside or downside remains to be seen. I have stated before that the next runup may not occur until 1999 - the more I see of the negativism out there, the more I am beginning to believe that scenario. The pre- announcements and announcements of bad sales and earnings news is certainly not over yet, and may continue for quite awhile. Getting back to the table again, only the top 3 stocks in the table closed on Thursday above their 1995 high. The first 2 in the table, ETEC and ASMLF, began their history (listing) in 1995 and therefore occupy a rather special category. In other words, part of their place in the table is due to special circumstances compared to the other stocks in the table. PLAB occupies a special place in the group of 41 stocks. It is one of the few stocks that can be placed in the category of a "buy and hold" stock out of the group. It has a long history of showing an ever upward performance. It has had some setbacks along the way since the early 1990s, but overall it has had a very nice upward trend. Even though a few other semi-equips (very few indeed) can be placed in this category, I believe PLAB is number one out of the group and the rest come in a poor second. As stated above, the group performance compared to 1995 is down 48 percent. Only 16 stocks bettered that performance and the remaining 25 stocks had worse performance. Their are some very good names in the lower part of the table. Let's take FSII as an example. This was my first investment in the semi-equip area a little over 2 years ago at $13. Thursday it closed at $9.44 so I am down 27 percent to date. To date, all I can say is "buy and hold" sucks.:) Two other stocks I hold are SFLX and AFLX. SFLX I bought at $9. Thursday it closed at $7 so I am down 22 percent. I thought I was being real clever about 3 weeks ago when I bought AFLX for $16. I was convinced it was at the bottom, or very nearly so. Thursday it closed at 9.13 so I am down 43 percent - it only has to gain 75 percent to get back to my entry price. Let's look at overall performance, however from 1995 for each stock. SFLX is down 63 percent and AFLX is down 71 percent. Just to get back to their 1995 highs - 3 years ago - the gains have to be 168 percent and 241 percent respectively. If they ever manage to do that, most everyone would probably be pretty happy. Both of these stocks, while coming close to their 1995 high in 1997, could not quite make it. There are 11 stocks at the end of the table that are down over 70 percent from their 1995 highs - that's over 25 percent of the group. MTSN, the last entry in the table, is down 83 percent - it has to gain 472 percent to get back to its 1995 level. As shown in an earlier post, the PBR for the group is 1.97 at Thursday's close. This is compared to the DOW and S&P 500 which is up around 6 or so. Even though the reading is 1.97, it could go lower - how about to around 1.0? I mean, since the situation is ridiculous, how about going all the way?:) 1995 1997 07/02/98 98 vs 95 HIGHEST HIGHEST CLOSE PERCENT SYMBOL COMPANY PRICE PRICE PRICE CHANGE ETEC Etec System 9.17 67.13 34.75 279 ASMLF ASM Lithography Holdings 14.00 52.88 29.50 111 PLAB Photronics 20.24 31.38 24.25 20 AMAT Applied Materials 29.56 54.00 29.69 0 SFAM SpeedFAM 18.25 60.38 17.38 -5 ATMI ATMI Inc 15.44 41.75 13.50 -13 NANO Nanometrics 10.13 13.63 8.75 -14 MASK Align-Rite International 18.00 24.00 14.63 -19 NVLS Novellus Systems 43.19 64.69 34.50 -20 VECO Veeco Instruments 29.13 72.50 23.25 -20 PRIA Pri Automation 22.38 58.50 16.56 -26 COHU Cohu 35.75 56.00 24.25 -32 TER Teradyne 42.00 58.75 27.38 -35 MICN Micrion 16.00 27.50 9.88 -38 HELX Helix Technology 27.00 32.19 15.00 -44 KLAC KLA Instruments 46.91 75.63 26.00 -45 CMOS Credence Systems 40.25 54.13 20.69 -49 WJ Watkins Johnson 56.25 37.25 28.81 -49 BRKS Brooks Automation 24.00 39.69 12.06 -50 IMSC Integrated Measurement Systems 16.50 20.00 8.00 -52 ASYT Asyst Technologies 26.50 47.25 12.75 -52 UTEK Ultratech Stepper 46.75 34.38 19.38 -59 SFLX Smartflex Systems 18.75 17.50 7.00 -63 KLIC Kulicke & Soffa Industries 44.38 57.25 16.56 -63 LTXX LTX 14.00 8.19 4.81 -66 SVGI Silicon Valley Group 48.38 37.75 16.06 -67 EGLS Electroglas 39.75 35.25 12.63 -68 AFLX Adflex Solutions 31.13 28.50 9.13 -71 WFR MEMC Electronic Materials 38.25 38.75 10.56 -72 GSNX Gasonics 26.83 23.06 7.31 -73 TGAL Tegal 13.88 11.25 3.75 -73 PHTN Photon Dynamics 12.00 8.38 3.19 -73 LRCX Lam Research 71.75 66.31 18.06 -75 FSII FSI International 37.75 23.19 9.44 -75 SMTL Semitool 36.00 26.88 8.34 -77 IPEC Integrated Process Equipment 54.50 37.19 11.06 -80 ASEC Aseco 21.88 18.88 4.19 -81 MTSN Mattson Technology 31.13 16.00 5.44 -83 CYMI Cymer 48.75 15.63 DPMI Dupont Photomasks 72.00 34.25 CFMT CFM Technologies 40.50 13.28 TOTALS 1148 1478 598 -48 98 vs 97 1639 662 -60