To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (21746 ) 7/14/1998 10:53:00 AM From: Teri Skogerboe Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 70976
Here's one thought that may help explain why the stock didn't go down harder yesterday, though all but one of us are well aware that one day does not make a market . Who are these brain-dead newcomers who acted as if we predicted that AMAT would trade at 12 yesterday... Sorry, but if you ask me, that was deserved. (You asked for it, you got it sort of thing). Back to that reason now, prices are set at the margin, meaning the small percentage of people who were either ready to buy or sell yesterday, basically set the price yesterday. Those people who months ago decided "there is trouble in Paradise, and maybe not a small bit of it" have long since been out of the stock, and this reduced the number of sellers. Now we have a newish group of "true-believers" who are focusing their sights (and expectations) on the stock's action last year and looking for a repeat performance. I guess many things could happen, but here are two. (1) The new "true-believers" will be proved right. The industry will miraculously overcome its overcapacitied state and the stock will go straight to the moon, proving all the skeptics (yes and that definitely includes me) to be completely wrong. (2) The new set of "true-believers" gets their "lesson by fire" as it relates to investing in cyclical companies that haven't grown since 1996, whose customers are hurting and whose rates of capital investment, which in some cases were as high as 100%, are largely considered (at least by those who pondered the issue more than a picosecond) unsustainable. In this scenario, AMAT is now trading in the middle, as in this is not the bottom or top, but the middle. And the next step is lower, who knows exactly where... my guess is in the 12 to 23 range. Some of the risks today in my view are (1) market risk - S&P 500 PE of 28ish; this market is pricier than the '87 market and if it corrects in a similar manner as it did that year, we will have a number of "pundits" who will be telling us they "told us so", and that is mostly not true. Most of them didn't say a word. (2) Japan/Asia risk -- which happened to represent the "growth" portion of the semicondutor end market, and who are currently flailing away aimlessly having no idea where to begin solving their problems. (3) Semi-equipment market risk, that we are heading through the valley but the depth of the valley is not yet known. Point here is: it could be really nasty, bloody etal and drag on longer than anyone expects, or it could be like '96 which was somewhat minor. Indications right now are that it's significantly worse than the '96 downturn and we still have no idea how bad it will get. Maybe I'm just too conservative, but under these conditions, buying hard and heavy into this atmosphere seems like kamikaze behavior. Lastly, I believe in your bottom indicators... still. And they continue to say... we ain't there yet. Excuse the randomness, and it's all JMO, Teri