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

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (22005)	7/21/1998 1:45:00 PM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Katherine, I belong to the school that no bad news from the sector will knock AMAT down anymore. It will move with the market and I suspect the beta will be huge. If IBM can going up 6-7 or more on flat revenue and struggling to achieve double digit growth, the current investor mentality is clearly in the greater fool camp. The following is a scary article about what may happen. I just find his description of excess investment very applicable to the semi industry, even though he is talking about the economy in general. aei.org Ramsey

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (22005)	7/21/1998 1:58:00 PM
From: John Sikora	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

KD, This rally IMO will be short lived...I bought OCT PUTS on AMAT and AUG PUTS on MOT...Sure there is no harm in buying AMAT at these levels for the longer term...But in the next few months this sector is going to be under pressure... john

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (22005)	7/21/1998 2:07:00 PM
From: csw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Katherine, I echo your views entirely. We have unfortunately got a long way to go before capacity and demand are in balance. If you couple this with an aggressive move to 0.25um and below technology then we are in a position where capacity could increase by 50%+ for the addition of some lithography and etch tools. These sales will help but will not compensate for the loss of equipping a complete Fab. I believe Q2->Q3 99 is about right. csw

To: Katherine Derbyshire who wrote (22005)	7/21/1998 4:37:00 PM
From: Quant	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 70976

IMHO Semicon West was a forum for industry to "guide down" earnings expectations (please reread my 7/17 post). The bar has been lowered to meet or exceed estimates in the next several quarters. Regardless of whether the semi recovery is in 1H '99 or 2H '99, CAPEX spending historically has accelerated six months in front of such a recovery my the chipmakers. I continue to expect an uptrend in AMAT. AMAT and SOX Index are poised for relative outperformance in forward weeks. If there is a surprise, it could be a significant breakout to the upside. I appreciate your position, but I think it's time to flip the album.