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

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/28/1998 6:29:00 PM
From: Gary Burton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Carl--Please don't misunderstand where I'm coming from. At the moment I'm 92% in cash overall, and i own l stock (ADPT) which i just bought since it's off 80% and still has a very good balance sheet. As for the semiequips, my mouth is watering at some of the values in the smaller firms like ASYT BRKS KLIC and ATRM which are all down over 75% from their peaks and which have a lot of cash, net of any debt, to ride things out. Take sleepy BRKS for eg--It's trading at an EPSR of about 0.5 (price less net cash/Sept qtr est annualized sales) and 60% of the stock price is cash. With these types of companies, why wait any longer is what I'm asking myself. But having an elliott wave bent, I hold off since EW tells me one more decline. Then i see AMAT trading and i scratch my head and ask myself if elliott count is wrong!. I'm also waiting for a BIG drop in the overall mkt-long overdue. So, I sit and wait and hope you're right!

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/28/1998 8:19:00 PM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Carl, thank you for your rare appearance here. Most of your current views on the industry sound like the majority consensus of the thread to me. So I wouldn't expect you to get flak. The important thing for me to remember is that you are talking about industry conditions. You are not predicting stock price movement or investor sentiment. Thank you for the YOY growth chart. Gottfried

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/28/1998 9:46:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Welcome back, Carl, 1. Most important things first, congratulations on getting AMAT post # 22,222. 2. Thanks for the URL to that most interesting chart on Unit IC Y/Y growth. The last point plotted seems to be an all time low. Contrarian that I am, I would take that as a bullish sign. 3. RE SI member dislike of the analyst community. Speaking for this SI member, I dislike analysts with obvious conflicts of interests such as those who work for Investment Bankers and churn client accounts. For some strange reason, I'm reminded of Tom Kurlak flip-flopping on Micron at least 4 times in about 1 year. To my knowledge, no one has ever criticized you for being part of the analyst community. ... and the only post that criticized you for having your URL in your signature came from a poster who had never contributed anything of any value to SI. Clearly, in S.I.'s early days, you and Ron were frequent and valued posters. 4. None of us consistently win accolades for market timing. Certainly we shouldn't expect perfection from you especially when you never promised it. 5. Just as '96 downturn came to an end with technology buys rather than capacity, it is quite possible that this downturn may come to an end as the DRAM makers rush to catch up with the leading edge production technology in their sector. Except this time, we know the result - a greater contribution to excess capacity. So, I wouldn't expect stock prices to spike up quite as much this time as they did in 96 -97. But again, what do I know? I don't even profess to be an analyst. 6. Last, I appreciate, even desire, contrary opinions from knowledgeable people. I tend to ignore contrary opinions from those who've shown very little understanding of anything. Clearly, you're part of the former community. [in case there was any doubt of my opinion of you.] Again, welcome back and best regards, Ian.

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/28/1998 10:19:00 PM
From: Clarksterh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Carl - In regards to your graph of unit shipment growth - is that really measured in quantities of individual chips or is that measured in dollars? The latter wouldn't surprise me, the former would. The only thing I can think of that would cause the actual number of chips sold to decrease would be an inventory work-off given that the world consumer economy seems to be still rolling along. Clark PS Thanks for the info on unit shipments. I've looked all over for that and had been unsuccessful until your post. Just food for thought - some other possible causes for decreased unit shipments that I though of after the last post: 1) DRAM shrinks, while PC memory requirements do not increase - thus many fewer chips per PC. 2) Along the same lines as #1, system chips in telecom or PC multimedia or, ... .

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/28/1998 10:46:00 PM
From: Cynic 2005	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Carl, I have book-marked you since I first saw your note on the Micron Only thread two years ago. Never mind what some people, who can't add 2+2, say about your calls. To me and to most people who learned enough to know a couple of months don't make a trend or make a sound fundamental analysis wrong. I would say, without any ambiguity, that your call on semiconductor business has been the most accurate one I have followed. I, like Mike Burke, share many of your concerns on macro economic picture in general and semi-conductor biz in particular. Not that I know as much about the industry as you do - but I at least don't have my head stuck in the sand. When this thread was going berserk with speculation that semiconductor equipment stocks will command the premium of the likes of Microsoft and Intel, I was having a completely different view which is not much different from yours. #reply-2516886 BTW, do you have an opinion on the mask equipment makers (ETEC)? Thanks. -Mohan

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/29/1998 2:48:00 AM
From: Peter Singleton	Respond to of 70976

Carl, <<P.S. Is anybody else concerned about the macroeconomic picture that is quietly developing behind the scenes?>> yes. Peter

To: C_Johnson who wrote (22222)	7/31/1998 11:55:00 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Carl, just one comment to your well thought out post. When IC growth become negative, that is usually the bottom of the cycle, it rarely become more than -5% maybe on a spike -8%, well we have just reached that level. Sure it could be an L bottom, but this will require a world wide recession, unless the macroeconomics point this way, I can say that this negative growth rate is the silver lining. Having said all that, I am out of AMAT as of today since it reached my target of 34. For broader market reasons, I am stepping aside slowly taking off the table some chips. I think that we will face another Asia induced minimelt in our market within two to three months, and I do not mind leaving some on the table. Zeev