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Technology Stocks : Cohu, Inc. (COHU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Henry D who wrote (1177)	2/2/1999 2:43:00 PM
From: Henry D	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7827

to all: i sent e-mail to TER regarding sales of their test handler. They said they have not sold any but have several on trial.

To: Henry D who wrote (1177)	2/3/1999 12:14:00 AM
From: KLINVESTOR	Respond to of 7827

HenryD, I am not certain about whether Cohu will attend any investor conferences this year. Last year they attended a few and I think it was Needham which seemed to follow a lot of semi-equips which held one of the conferences. As to whether Montgomery would cover Cohu it is unlikely given the perception of Cohu being a small company with little investment banking opportunity. I have a brokerage account with Montgomery Securities. About a year ago I tried to find out what were their analyst views on Cohu (Brett Hodess and staff) and I was amazed that he and his staff were hardly familiar with the company. I could understand not writing reports on the company but to not follow it somewhat was amazing to me. Of course it demonstrated to me that the analysts in these firms were most interested in large companies, with investment banking activity, and doing what ever it took to get lots of attention. In the past year Hodess has done a good job at attracting attention and will probably be rewarded for that. What most people forget is he maintained strong buy recommendations during the October 1997 to year-end of that year when these companies were crashing. He certainly did not predict that fall. Analyst coverage is really based more upon whether firms have been involved in investment banking related activities for the company (IPO, debt issues, etc). The very conservative nature of Cohu precludes firms chasing it to provide coverage. No stocks issues. Lots of excess cash so no debt issues. Relatively lethargic with respect to pursuing acquisitions. Cohu is a great company in respect to focus but they could continue to improve on their market image. With respect to us as investors in Cohu I think we have significant upside relative to Cohu earnings prospects but probably one of the most significant upside events would be if another larger semi-equip company pursued Cohu as a strategic acquisition. They are a great company at a steep discount to the others in the sector which should lead the others to pursue discussions with Cohu. Regarding my comment previously on investment banking coverage what I meant was they only had one analyst covering them about a year ago and today they have about four. The additional coverage is good news.