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

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (27834)	1/22/1999 3:25:00 PM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Skeeter, I don't follow MU, so I can't answer your question. I do think it's a mistake to use the results of any one company to try to forecast the direction of the entire industry. While it is true that the semiconductor equipment industry is strongly linked to DRAM supply and demand, as you have pointed out before, I believe that you are overlooking differences in the dynamics of the two industries. The strong cyclical nature of the semiconductor equipment industry is not likely to end any time soon, and that is what I am counting on. I believe that these strong cycles to the business are caused by fundamental factors such as the time lag between committing to a new fab and getting it up and running, the high costs involved, and the boom/bust nature of the semiconductor industry itself. Recognizing the existence of these powerful cycles, it becomes necessary to try to determine which direction of the cycle we are in, but determining how fast the increase or decrease will be is not necessary. When I see a three-month moving average of bookings going up as much as they have for several months in a row, it is hard for me to believe that this is just a glitch. Somebody must be coming up with the money and/or financing to place those orders, and I believe that whatever fundamental factors enabled them to do so are unlikely to change overnight, especially coming off a weak period as severe as we have had. But if I'm wrong, then I am prepared to wait, because I do not use margin.