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Technology Stocks : FSII - The Worst is Over? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Donald Wennerstrom who wrote (2340)	12/20/1998 1:17:00 PM
From: Donald Wennerstrom	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2754

1995 was a very good year for the semi-equips. Most of the stocks that were listed on the Exchange(s) started their rise in Jan/Feb and made extremely good gains throughout the year. A tabulation was made of each stocks high price for the year, on whatever that date happened to occur in 1995, and this is compared to the close of the stock this Friday in the table below. The top three stocks in the table were not listed in 1995, therefore a comparison cannot be made. Excluding these 3 stocks from the total sum of Friday's closing price gives a number of 688 to compare to the sum of 1148 for the highest prices of 1995. Friday's close is down 40 percent compared to the 1995 figure. Putting it another way, this means a 67 percent gain from Friday's close is needed to match the 1995 figure. This is a good indication of how poorly the semi-equips have done as a group over the past 3 years. We are now very close to the end of 1998, and the highs in the semi-equip group were usually made in the latter part of 1995. Eight of the stocks in the table are now above their 1995 high. Four of them, ETEC, ASMLF, VECO and AMAT are up over 50 percent. There are 30 stocks that are "underwater". Twenty one (21) of the 38 stocks are down over 50 percent from their 1995 highs. They have a long way to go to climb back to parity. An amazing 10 stocks out of the 38, or over 25 percent of the group, are down 75 percent or more from their 1995 highs. The above analysis is based on Friday's closing price of 688 for the group. This number is up 83 percent from the 375 close of just 10 weeks ago. In summary, when comparing the 38 stocks of the group over the approximate 3 year period of 1995 to the present in 1998, only 8 have higher prices today than 3 years ago. From the group average point of view, even after the last 10 weeks with a gain of 83 percent, another 67 percent gain is needed to equal the 1995 high. 1995 12/18/98 HIGHEST CLOSE PERCENT SYMBOL COMPANY PRICE PRICE CHANGE CFMT CFM Technologies 7.19 CYMI Cymer 16.56 DPMI Dupont Photomasks 43.50 ETEC Etec System 9.17 40.00 336 ASMLF ASM Lithography Holdings 14.00 28.88 106 VECO Veeco Instruments 29.13 50.63 74 AMAT Applied Materials 29.56 45.44 54 ATMI ATMI Inc 15.44 22.75 47 NVLS Novellus Systems 43.19 53.88 25 PLAB Photronics 20.24 23.50 16 PRIA Pri Automation 22.38 24.25 8 TER Teradyne 42.00 40.88 -3 KLAC KLA Instruments 46.91 43.44 -7 SFAM SpeedFAM 18.25 15.00 -18 NANO Nanometrics 10.13 7.88 -22 ASYT Asyst Technologies 26.50 19.81 -25 MASK Align-Rite International 18.00 13.00 -28 MICN Micrion 16.00 10.75 -33 BRKS Brooks Automation 24.00 15.63 -35 COHU Cohu 35.75 21.19 -41 IMSC Integrated Measurement Systems 16.50 8.00 -52 HELX Helix Technology 27.00 12.63 -53 CMOS Credence Systems 40.25 17.88 -56 KLIC Kulicke & Soffa Industries 44.38 18.38 -59 UTEK Ultratech Stepper 46.75 17.56 -62 SFLX Smartflex Systems 18.75 7.00 -63 WJ Watkins Johnson 56.25 20.25 -64 PHTN Photon Dynamics 12.00 4.13 -66 EGLS Electroglas 39.75 12.50 -69 GSNX Gasonics 26.83 8.06 -70 LRCX Lam Research 71.75 18.88 -74 WFR MEMC Electronic Materials 38.25 9.56 -75 TGAL Tegal 13.88 3.38 -76 AFLX Adflex Solutions 31.13 7.25 -77 MTSN Mattson Technology 31.13 7.06 -77 SVGI Silicon Valley Group 48.38 10.75 -78 LTXX LTX 14.00 2.94 -79 FSII FSI International 37.75 7.34 -81 IPEC Integrated Process Equipment 54.50 10.25 -81 SMTL Semitool 36.00 5.75 -84 ASEC Aseco 21.88 1.38 -94 TOTALS 1147.76 687.84 -40