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


To: marc henschke who wrote (27843)1/22/1999 4:05:00 PM
From: Gottfried  Respond to of 70976
 
Marc, [edited] your explanation why AMAT never fell to 15 is hindsight at its finest.<G>

Respectfully Gottfried
I enjoyed your historic observation >>Four months ago, this thread was dominated by aggressive, relentless bears who spent
hours a day scouring the internet for catastrophic accounts of semiconductor weakness, and mocking those with the temerity to predict brighter days ahead.
<<



To: marc henschke who wrote (27843)1/22/1999 5:16:00 PM
From: Naveen Kumar  Respond to of 70976
 
Thank you for your analysis. In a moment of panic, I sold my AMATS in the mid 50's today after having bought at 29 and holding thru dip to 22. But I did buy some calls before selling just in case it takes off. The overall market makes me nervous, hence the sell. I realize we have not run the course of the new semi-conductor cycle, but thought locking in some profits would be a good idea. Will certainly jump in on weakness.



To: marc henschke who wrote (27843)1/22/1999 8:04:00 PM
From: Paul V.  Respond to of 70976
 
Marc,People who predicted AMAT at $15 per share focused too narrowly on fundamental analysis at the expense of considering investor psychology. The fact is, all the folks who missed the the train during the last up cycle weren't going to let it happen to them again. Accordingly, if anything, they were going to err this time on the side of jumping into the stock too early, thereby fortifying it against a precipitous plunge into the teens.

I, and others projected that the stock would go into the teens were basing it on FA against the price that it hit in 1996. However, as I have stated previously, the only indication of AMAT's strength was my charting of the R/S from the IBD which only reached a low of 20 in 1998 rather than 10 which it reached in 1996. The IBD RS supports your contention and was the reason I bought numerous shares at $26.50 on margin while many on this thread was saying to me, Paul, "have you been blowing blue smoke?" I always, ask myself, "what is the downside risk of a stock going down verse the upside gain." The same question can also be ask when selling a particular stock in the up cycle.

So far I have made the train in both cycles when it left the station. However, I was still on the train when it took a side rail and fell from its top even though I was up approximately 80% at the lows. Not bad for two years but not as much as I could have made if I would have gotten off the train at the top.

Experience is the best teacher if we learn from our mistakes.

Just my opinions.

Paul



To: marc henschke who wrote (27843)1/23/1999 3:15:00 PM
From: Proud_Infidel  Respond to of 70976
 
Marc,

Excellent post especially "People who predicted AMAT at $15 per share focused too narrowly on fundamental analysis at the expense of considering investor psychology"

I always underestimate the movement of this sector both on the downside and the up. Many people seem to forget that after a 3 year drought, a monsoon is often inevitable. That is why AMAT started to turn up recently even though we will not surpass our old high eps for a few qtrs yet.

One more lesson to be learned from "aggressive, relentless bears who spent hours a day scouring the internet for catastrophic accounts of semiconductor weakness, and mocking those with the temerity to predict brighter days ahead" is that after a sector sells off 50-60%, the bad news is most likely factored in unless they are indeed going out of business.

Regards,

Brian



To: marc henschke who wrote (27843)1/29/1999 8:15:00 AM
From: Georgeb  Respond to of 70976
 
Marc,

I have been following this stock for years on a daily basis. I missed the boat on the big move last time, and might miss it again this time. I sold calls at 40, and may not have another chance to roll up. Surely you agree that the current price is a huge bubble (a P/E of 90+ with no clear earnings forcasts for at least 2 quarters)? Do you see it continuing with this type of internet startup company valuation? The most aggressive industry analysts don't predict that kind of growth, and it has never had that kind of growth (not in any cycle).

George