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

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (22420)	8/2/1998 7:57:00 PM
From: P.M.Freedman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

B2B may not got improvement in last month and this month. Chip prices weren't better. The price war is still going on. Intel and Samsung shut plants did help a bit but not much.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (22420)	8/2/1998 8:54:00 PM
From: John L.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

I believe we will need to see an increase in orders with letters of credit to back them up, the Koreans want to buy and would like financing from the semi equip companies. I think the equip companies view the banks cutting off credit as a sign warning everybody not to extend credit to freely. I believe ASMLF canceled a sale a while ago because they reniged on extending credit for the systems on order. When the Asia crisis started the first sign I recall was a company in Thailand could not secure financing for equipment they had purchased, everybody had to write off those sales. The BTB will improve since billings are dropping off so severely so that seems to me to be a poor indicator unless it goes to 1.3 or above. Chip prices will never return to there previous levels so demand must increase significantly to make companies profitable again. I believe Jim Morgan has good insights, but his timing as most of ours is not 100%, we all wanted the coaster to keep going up, but this dip should improve the momentum when we start moving up again. I hope the Christmas season gives everybody a boost and the orders start coming in January '99, this downturn has been a lot more brutal than anybody expected 6 months ago. Good Luck picking the upturn.