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

To: Math Junkie who wrote (27349)	12/27/1998 8:19:00 AM
From: Georgeb	Respond to of 70976

There is another aspect to the boom-bust cycle that I haven't seen mentioned as often: the underlying technologies use different scales to achieve the higher densities and faster processor speeds for each new generation of microelectronics. This development obsoletes much (but not all) of the current FAB equipment (whether it is used or not). The excess capacity in a generation's time becomes largely unusable. The inherent changes in scale technology make this an immature industry from the point of analyzing capacity. Growth is driven not just by the current market, but also by the new unanticipated markets made possible by the new technologies. The world of applications for microelectronics is still going thru a revolution. This is why I have put so many eggs into my AMAT basket. To paraphrase someone on this thread regarding recovery "its not IF, its WHEN." I expect (and hope) AMAT will dip back into the low to mid 30's to provide buying opportunities within the next quarter (or a perfect roll-up for those who write covered calls). After that it should, within a year, hit those 65-70 dollar targets that the analysts are throwing out. This is just a non-analytical opinion of course, and I should say that I have a history of missing the big moves because I sold too soon.