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

To: Paul Dieterich who wrote (21363)	7/10/1998 10:53:00 AM
From: Q.	Respond to of 70976

Yesterday Herb Greenberg, columnist of theStreet.com, speculated that a disappointing pre-announcement was coming. Whether bookings or revenues wasn't stated. I'll try to summarize, with my editorial added. His argument, presumably fed to him by a bear, which is not necessarily to say it is wrong, is that other firms in the industry with the same customers have pre-announced bad news in the last couple of months but AMAT hasn't. He also cited his own industry source as saying that things (not specified exactly) have gotten much worse in the last couple of weeks to the point that a co. in the industry might not know exactly what its numbers are (again not specific about what numbers are meant). That all might be pretty fuzzy, but it's the most specific details I've seen on the rumors of an earnings warning.

To: Paul Dieterich who wrote (21363)	7/10/1998 3:26:00 PM
From: Rob-Chemist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

This would not be surprising based on the earnings warning from Applied Science and Technology (ASTX). (see biz.yahoo.com ASTX supplies the RF amplifiers for generating plasmas as well as ozone generators that are then incorporated into the finished semi equipment, and AMAT is one of their primary customers (largest, I believe). From their report, it looks like their sales of equipment to the semi equipment makers is off by ca. 50% from the last quarter of 98, suggesting that AMATs sales for this quarter and/or the next quarter will similarly decline. (Note: I do not know what fraction of the RF amplifiers used by AMAT are supplied by ASXT, but from previous statements by ASTX, it appears that they are a major supplier.)