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Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry D who wrote (7191)	10/25/1998 9:33:00 PM
From: Katherine Derbyshire	Respond to of 10921

Based on my observations at Semicon SW, the "good news" seems to be that all the bad news is out. Things aren't getting better for the equipment companies, and there are few indications that they'll get better soon, but they don't seem to be getting any worse, either. The customers (chip makers) have mostly stopped bleeding money, and some of them are even showing better-than-expected profits. Japan seems to be slowly starting to fix things, and Samsung is making very competitive noises about keeping up with Micron. That means that all the orders that haven't been cancelled yet probably are real orders, and all the people who still have jobs will probably get to keep them. And so the value players, who are a pretty patient bunch anyway, and the greedy folks who know that these stocks are going to go up 3x or 4x at some point and want to get every last penny of that gain, are jumping in with both feet. Some of them will probably get shaken out after the next quarter or two of poor earnings (and I think the next quarter or two will be poor), but we may have seen the absolute bottom already. Unless of course we have more macroeconomic uncertainty. If the Global Depression threats become real again (psychologically), the stocks will probably go down as fast as they've gone up. Standard disclaimer: I don't buy these companies, I just write about them, so being wrong won't cost me anything. Katherine

To: Henry D who wrote (7191)	10/27/1998 5:49:00 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10921

Henry, I believe that in the history of the industry we never had a BTB of .57 as we got last month. While it is not impossible that we will get BTB which are even lower, it is not very likely. This industry often has its turn coincident with a through in the BTB, and thus the belief that, maybe, the bottom has been reached. The question investors are asking themselves is, can it get much worse? Zeev

To: Henry D who wrote (7191)	10/29/1998 2:22:00 AM
From: Tom Murphy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10921

Semiconductor Equipment/Electronics September - Worst Book-to-Bill on Record The SEMI book-to-bill ratio for the 3 months ending September for all equipment in total was 0.57, representing the worst ratio since SEMI began Publishing data in 1991. Total orders were down 16.1% from August levels. - Bookings have now declined 71% from peak levels in November 1997. - Front end orders for September were down 23.6% sequentially, after a decline of 24.2% in August. - On an absolute basis, September order levels of $476.4 million are the lowest since March 1993. - The front end ratio was 0.55 in September. This represents the worst ratio since SEMI began publishing data in 1991, and the twelfth sequential reporting period during which growth in orders has been less than growth in shipments.