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To: Andrew Vance who wrote (15349)8/22/1998 6:15:00 PM
From: Kachina  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 17305
 
Andrew -
I am thinking about some other aspects of the electronics equipment biz. A buddy of mine used to work for AMAT.
What I am thinking about is this:
All the players are getting squeezed up against the wall of submicron etching processes. There is work being done. But only Toshiba has come out with something at all promising. And they are tight lipped about how.
Related to this are items like the IBM SOI process improvements.
It is all about the fundamental game, packing density, lowering power req's, and resultant speed.

The FABs are quaking because they are looking at multi-billion (like $10 billion) refits of process equipment. And - this technology is not 100% worked out yet.

This horizon is within 5 years, and for the equipment maker who can supply something that works first, will come the golden laurel wreath.
One way to look at this is to think, "OK. So the big boys will have the money to build this stuff." But another is that maybe the big boys will get chewed up by an upstart. But then the industry is pretty mature - look at the capitalization requirements for a company like AMAT. It's pretty incredible stuff. So maybe any process will just get licensed to the big boys.
My buddy was working on the process equip for the big wafers.

Any thoughts?

I know this is farther out than matters for these stocks right now. But it is an aspect of the recovery picture also. I think we could see USA and Europe firms putting in new plants in the depressed Asian sector just because the talent is there, and these new Fabs are so goddamed expensive. But most of that cost is equipment from the West. So maybe not. But even if they were, the profits would go to USA companies? Hmmm. Dunno.

Thoughts about that also? As you can see I am tying myself up in mental knots trying to figure out where this one will go in the long horizon.



To: Andrew Vance who wrote (15349)8/24/1998 3:21:00 AM
From: Andrew Vance  Respond to of 17305
 
*AV*--Barely got back from a mini vacation in the moumtains of CO and am behind on email. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

Here is the most recent addition of the newsletter.

Radar Trader Newsletter
High Tech Commentary-- Scan List
August 24, 1998

Only 11 stocks made the list over the weekend which bring to light 3 very important pieces of information.

1. Stocks go in and out of rotation in my universe and there is no need to force a trade or force a set of stocks. IF they are not there, they are not there and maybe sitting and watching is the best you can do. OR - you look at the rest of the list for some special circumstances for a daytrade.
2. As I have mentioned most of last week, the Tech sector was going to be mugged real bad as we got into the Options Expiry Friday Bloodletting. It did take place and the smart money either shorted, dumped their long positions, or went to the side and just watched the chaos. More importantly, they do not appear of this list today since there is a great deal of uncertainty. So the best thing to do and to watch.
3. No one can day in and day out deliver you winners or directions for investments for that day. I will not write about timely short term stocks during uncertain time for the sake of writing about something and having something for you to jump into.

With that said, the tech sector was beaten up badly on Friday creating some very attractive prices for some stocks. The key concerns here are whether we are about to see lower lows before turning around and whether the long term investor in each of us is willing to step up to the plate and not get concerned about hitting the absolute bottom of the price range before making the move into some of these stocks. The list of the most beaten down beauties are:

AMAT($30.50) ASMLF($24.375) ATMI($15.00) CFMT($7.50)
CIEM($31.25) CYMI($15.375) DPMI($30.25) IDTI($5.93)
IPEC($9.125) MCHP($26.00) NSM($11.25) NVLS($34.00)
PAIR($12.875) PLAB($17.00) TER($21.25) VTSS($32.50)

As long as we are listing beaten down stocks, I would think that CIEN was way over sold in the hysterics of losing the T proposed contract. AT&T Corp. (T) said it had stopped its evaluation of Ciena's equipment. Ciena Corp. plunged 25-17/32 to 31-1/4 causing the company to postpone a shareholder vote on its merger with Tellabs Inc. (TLAB).
The Red Herring Online (August 21, 1998) printed that Ciena announced AT&T (T) dropped it from consideration for a major contract. Apparently AT&T said it won't consider Ciena's dense wavelength division multiplexing gear which would increase the capacity of fiber-optic networks. The Ciena contract was worth $100 million for the gear. contract to provide the gear. AT&T is testing equipment from Lucent Technologies (LU). This makes the second major setback this year for CIEN since WorldCom dropped them earlier this year. Sprint has even mentioned they are considering bringing onboard another vendor this year. A majority of CIEN's business was based on Sprint, WorldCom, and the telephone companies like ATT.

True, CIEN is a one trick pony these days, but I think we are seeing about 10-15% overkill on this stock.

RST SCAN LIST COMMENTARY

AEIS(11-1/8, +5/8) -Chart does not look good. Company is laying off people and consolidating their buildings and operations. Their major customers are falling on extremely hard times (NVLS, AMAT, LRCX, etal.). The last 3 months has seen this company fall from $15 to under $9, with the last 5 trading days showing an upward trend through $11. There was a definite over reaction to their financials and their recent announcements and the oversold condition may have been compensated for to bring AEIS back to realistic valuations. IN its heyday, we saw this stock in the $30s and I am confident we will see those numbers again when the industry recovers.

MUEI(16-1/4, +9/16)-We have spoken about this in past reports and it seems as if they are adding to a positive trend upwards on the tails of the wonderful DELL numbers along with new marketing and, of course, the takeover spectre.

ORCL(24-15/16, +3/8)-This stock is desperately trying to break the $30 barrier once again. There is no reason it should not but the market environment always seems to work against them. I have been waiting for months and months for this sick puppy to finally get well. Oracle Corp upgraded by Sunlogic Securities (8/21/98 - citing strong client base, strong international database management software sales and growing revenues.
Oracle to Acquire Versatility Inc.http://biz.yahoo.com/snp/980821/vers_m_a_1.html

WIND(38-3/8, +3 9/16)-I don't remember if I spoke on this stock before and will assume that I did not.. Wind River Systems Inc. jumped 10 percent Friday after the software company posted earnings that surpassed Wall Street's expectations.
cbs.marketwatch.com
Featured Articles from Standard & Poor's Personal Wealth on 8/21/98 featured an article on WIND. personalwealth.com
CS First Boston issued a STRONG BUY on this stock before the market opened on Aug 21st. The stock opened up 5/8 higher but actually fell into negative territory (-7/16) before making the run up to close up over 3-1/2.
TOP25: Computer Software & Services Firms CBS MarketWatch - Alerts - August 21, 1998 15:23 listed WIND as #25.
Words of Caution though are necessary given the 8/21/98 SEC filing to sell over 200,000 shares of stock by insiders. marketwatch.newsalert.com

AAPL(43, +2-3/8)-people just love those iMacs, even with the discovered flaws. AAPL has made a great comeback this year and looks to have turned things around.
news.com

GALTF(11-15/16, +3/16)-See previous commentary for a more in depth report. However, CS first Boston initiated coverage on Friday with a buy recommendation.

NAUT(23-15/16, +1/8)-only reason it is mentioned here is related to the TNFI appearing on the list a few times in the past few trading sessions. Winter outwear season is getting real close so between the big guys like NAUT, TNFN, COLM, etc. we might be seeing the beginning of the seasonal run for this guys.

COMS(30-7/8, -1/2)-Cisco and 3Com are battling it out for the consumer market it seems. CSCO has its eye on this market while 3Com starts a branding effort. The link to the following story is well worth reading.
cbs.marketwatch.com

MPRS(5-13/16, 0)-just waiting for the ink to be placed on the papers for their acquisition by Hasbro Toys.

XIRC(26-9/16, -1/2)-gave back some of its gains over the past few weeks but not enough to scare me away from the long positions in this stock. Stock actually got down as low as $25.625 before coming back to close with a respectable -1/2. This makes up for the unusually high pop a few days ago. things seem to work out on the average.

NOVL(11, +1/8)--releasing new software written for the corporate network. Novell released better-than-expected third-quarter numbers on Friday. We spoke of this stock before and those people on The Motley Fool have posed the question:
Is Novell's Turnaround Turning? fnews.yahoo.com

TIDBITS I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE:

Autodesk Inc (ADSK) fell 5-3/16 to 27-7/16 after they announced it was buying Discreet Logic Inc. (DSLGF) for $531 million in stock.

INTC- Merrill Lynch analyst Tom Kurlak cut his rating on the company's stock to long-term "neutral" from long-term "accumulate."

Vitesse Semi(VTSS)- coverage initiated by CS First Boston as STRONG BUY. I am glad they agree with me since I thought is worthy enough to discuss with this subscriber base. CS first Boston also agrees with me as to why this is such an important stock to consider.

DELL-remember, this stock spilts in a few weeks and could repeat the past by going up after the split. Six splits in six years, need we say more.

Prosearch 5.0* Top Stock Report 08/23/98 - RST Scan List #1

1> AEIS - ADVANCED ENERGY INDUS INC COM .ELE
Price= 11.1 %Hi52= 0.3 VL/30= 1.6 Range= 0.0

Prosearch 5.0* Top Stock Report 08/23/98 - RST Scan List #2

4> MUEI - MICRON ELECTRONICS INC COM .DCS
Price= 16.3 ( 66) AvgVl= 10.4 ( 98) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 96)

7> ORCL - ORACLE CORP COM .DSO
Price= 24.9 ( 83) AvgVl= 70.3 ( 99) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 93)

8> WIND - WIND RIVER SYSTEMS INC COM .DSO
Price= 38.4 ( 92) AvgVl= 3.4 ( 94) 1-Dy = 1.1 ( 99)

15> AAPL - APPLE COMPUTER INC COM .DCS
Price= 43.0 ( 93) AvgVl= 49.9 ( 99) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 98)

16> GALTF - GALILEO TECH LTD COM .ESE
Price= 11.9 ( 49) AvgVl= 2.1 ( 91) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 93)

20> NAUT - NAUTICA ENTERPRISES INC COM .TAM
Price= 23.9 ( 82) AvgVl= 5.7 ( 96) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 90)

33> COMS - THREE COM CORP/3COM CORP COM .DPE
Price= 30.9 ( 88) AvgVl= 73.5 ( 99) 1-Dy = 0.9 ( 35)

38> MPRS - MICROPROSE INC COM .DSO
Price= 5.8 ( 16) AvgVl= 2.0 ( 91) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 76)

50> XIRC - XIRCOM INC COM .DCS
Price= 26.6 ( 85) AvgVl= 7.1 ( 97) 1-Dy = 0.9 ( 30)

52> NOVL - NOVELL INC COM .DSO
Price= 11.0 ( 43) AvgVl= 36.4 ( 99) 1-Dy = 1.0 ( 92)

Andrew