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Technology Stocks : Micron Only Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas G. Busillo who wrote (41909)	1/6/1999 10:27:00 AM
From: DJBEINO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53903

Micron Technology Sued by Former Workers Over Firings, WSJ Says Bloomberg News January 6, 1999, 5:47 a.m. PT Boise, Idaho, Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Micron Technology Inc. is being sued for $7 million by two former product engineers who allege they were fired because of company infighting, the Wall Street Journal reported. The suit filed by James J. Stefano and Nicholas Van Heel alleges fraud, slander, negligence and other charges related to their dismissal, and names the company, Chief Executive Steven Appleton, former board member Jerry M. Hess and Robert Donnelly, a vice president. Micron said the accusations that the workers were fired after presenting a report that showed the company could save significant amounts of money by changing its manufacturing and testing processes were ''factually incorrect,'' the paper said. Micron, one of the biggest makers of computer-memory chips, reported a smaller-than-expected loss of $46.2 million in the fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 3.

To: Thomas G. Busillo who wrote (41909)	1/6/1999 10:40:00 AM
From: SlowThinker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53903

Tom, As you surmised, there were no 2001 numbers on the financial estimates I was pulling from. More interestingly (at least this morning), trading has been halted in Micron. Gap up or gap down? Based on yesterday's end-of-day performance, I would guess the former.... >However, if Dan Niles is out there throwing out $200 price targets >without delivering "some actual numbers", I would find that greatly >troubling. I found the lack of hard numbers sourced to the press >EXTREMELY curious back when the story broke and your post made me >even more curious as to the extent of his analysis. Aside from the fact that there wasn't physical room on the page for the 01 numbers, I would view them as fairly speculative--which is probably how they viewed them. I'm willing to grant some credence to a company's and an industry's ability to explain why their predictions are reasonable for the next year, year and a half out. Two years out? They'll do it for planning purposes, but I do believe that that far out in this kind of volatile market, you should really just be focusing on general trends. And that goes in spades for our investing purposes. That's why I've tried to hammer away on the importance of the big picture here, not what spot DRAM pricing is doing this week. The overall trends do appear to be clear to me--as Mr. Niles says, we are in the beginning of a strong DRAM growth cycle. Will there be ups and downs as we go? Sure, can't imagine there wouldn't be. Will the general trend be up--and be up in a strong way? Yes, I do believe that also. >As far as the estimates themselves go, why would his ASP numbers, for >example, be any more accurate than those showing the 64MB ASP's >dipping under $7 during 1999? Isn't it true that the persons who are >predicting a more dramatic ASP decline "generally sweat over getting >the numbers as right as possible"? Fair question, Tom. In this kind of case, it comes down to who presents a more convincing case and whose track record you feel good about. I do agree with his long-term view of the DRAM world right now. On a related note, I'd like to also state that I'm not a fan of personal invective--people who have to resort to that generally don't have the rational argument to back up their point of view. There are certainly posters on this thread who disagree with that long-term view--and in 2 or 3 years, their beliefs about long-term weakness in the DRAM market might once again reflect market reality. For now, the market is looking strong from a DRAM perspective, and I foresee 60 and 65 much sooner than 50. I would not want to have been a writer of calls from the end of last week, and I would not want to be a holder of puts on the stock right now. Just MHO. Slow-Thinkingly yours,