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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FJB who wrote (66708)	10/15/1998 12:54:00 AM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Bob, Pauleron has his own pwivate thwead don't you know? In the conference call they skirted the unit volume and ASP numbers quite a bit. Q4 will be interesting. Can you imagine how capacity constarined they will be with the 1-2Mb on board cache devices. Intel is becoming a RAM company. Instead of designing great high performance CPU's they are adding cache and packaging innovations. Regards, Kash

To: FJB who wrote (66708)	10/15/1998 2:49:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Bob - Re: " Intel reportedly shipped 24 MILLION CPUs in Q3 Where did you get this information?" Right here - from the San Jose Mercury News Paul {==================================} mercurycenter.com Intel results in the chips Robust third quarter trumps forecasts, but company maintains guarded outlook Mercury News Staff Writer Intel Corp. beat all but the most optimistic projections with a stellar third quarter, but even record sales by the bellwether semiconductor company didn't appear to be enough to restore Wall Street's faith in the troubled semiconductor industry. Intel's third-quarter revenues of $6.7 billion were 14 percent above the company's previous quarter and beat the year-earlier quarter by 9 percent. Earnings of $1.6 billion were even better than expected -- up 33 percent from the prior quarter -- as the company's earnings per share of 88 cents were far ahead of analysts' consensus estimates of 80 cents. The company gave a guarded projection, however, saying that fourth-quarter sales and earnings would be only slightly better. Intel's stock price dropped by $1.88 during the day to close at $83.56, reflecting fears that the Santa Clara company's recovery might be short-lived. Intel reported its earnings at the close of U.S. markets and its shares fell slightly in after-hours trading. ''You have this negative psychology in the market right now, and that tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy,'' noted Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Piper Jaffray who rates the stock a strong buy. ''Forty percent of the world is dealing with a recession, and the rest of the world is wondering if they are going to be sucked into it as well. It's a no-win situation.'' Other analysts expressed confidence that as Intel's numbers -- and fourth-quarter forecasts -- are analyzed, the market would reward Intel's performance and recognize that at least some parts of the semiconductor industry are starting to rebound. 'Just being cautious' ''It was a good quarter,'' noted Dan Niles, an analyst with Banc-America Robertson Stephens in San Francisco. ''I think people were initially reacting to Intel's cautious forecast for the fourth quarter. I think it's pretty clear that Intel was just being cautious in its forecasts.'' Niles expects Intel to report earnings of more than 90 cents per share for the fourth quarter, as does Kumar. Other analysts, however cited increasing pressure and the possibility of an economic slowdown, or even recession, in the United States as reasons for downgrading Intel's performance. ''People are too excited about the seasonal upturn'' in PC sales, said Dan Scovel, an analyst at Fahnestock & Co. in New York. ''We're not looking at a real recovery here.'' Scovel rates Intel shares ''hold.'' Another indication of the state of the industry could come today, when Compaq Computer Corp. reports its results. To this point, analysts are divided as to what to expect from the largest manufacturer of PCs. By most measures, however, Intel's performance was impressive. Analysts estimated that the company sold approximately 24 million processors last quarter, with an average selling price of $212. Analysts said Intel had successfully maintained the selling price of its chips despite the popularity of low-cost computers. Intel's oft-maligned Celeron processors did especially well during the quarter, accounting for as much as a quarter of Intel's overall chip sales, according to some estimates. But even the most optimistic observers don't expect that Intel's results means a wholesale recovery for the semiconductor industry as a whole. Recovery for PCs ''I think for the PC segment of the industry, it means the recovery is here,'' Niles said. ''Cypress (Semiconductor) obviously put up some pretty decent numbers, and (Advanced Micro Devices) did pretty good.'' San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor Inc., which primarily makes specialty memory, on Tuesday reported third-quarter earnings of $500,000, or one cent a share, -- largely due to a research and development tax credit of $3 million for the quarter -- on sales of $126 million. In the second quarter Cypress lost seven cents per share on sales of $119 million. Last week, AMD reported its first profitable quarter -- with earnings of one cent per share -- after five consecutive losing quarters. DRAM makers still waiting But large segments of the semiconductor industry, primarily DRAM manufacturers and the semiconductor equipment manufacturers, are still waiting for the turnaround to start. ''For DRAM manufactures the future is obviously not rosy,'' Niles added. ''They're still suffering from overcapacity. It's not as bad as it was, but it's going to be 1999 before that situation actually turns around.'' The equipment manufacturers might have even longer to wait, as companies put off buying expensive machinery until the market improves. Intel, while it is moving to an 0.18-micron process next year, intends to reuse as much equipment as it can. ''For the equipment manufacturers the turn around won't come until the year 2000,'' Kumar predicted.