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Technology Stocks : Semi-Equips - Buy when BLOOD is running in the streets! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (7870)	5/31/1999 11:59:00 PM
From: LemurHouse	Respond to of 10921

LOL. Yeah, but as Jack Nicholson said in the shrink's waiting room, "what if this is as good as it gets?" <g>

To: Gottfried who wrote (7870)	6/1/1999 9:49:00 AM
From: Ian@SI	Respond to of 10921

Excellent story [it's very bullish] on the sector's outlook in Today's WSJ - Technology Section. Subscribers: interactive.wsj.com A brief flavour of the story... ... Boost for Chip-Equipment Makers Suddenly, Taiwanese chip makers are leading buyers of chip equipment, helping to fuel optimism across that industry. Analysts expect chip-equipment suppliers to swing back to single-digit growth in 1999 after seeing sales plummet 24% last year. Global sales of chips are predicted to rise about 9% in 1999, compared with an 11% drop in 1998. Applied Materials Inc., the world's largest maker of semiconductor equipment, illustrates the shift. The Santa Clara, Calif., company said it expects orders to grow in the fiscal third quarter concluding in the end of July, thanks to expansions by foundries and microprocessor makers, even as memory-chip makers continue to struggle. Taiwan, in fact, now accounts for 25% of Applied Materials' orders, up from less than 20% last year, said James Morgan, Applied's chief executive officer. Makers of memory chips called dynamic random access memories, or DRAMs, account for only 28% of Applied's orders, down from 38% earlier this year. "Investors have seen DRAM prices as a leading indicator of the fortunes of the chip industry," said Terry Ragsdale, an analyst at J.P. Morgan & Co. in New York. "There are good reasons why that is not the case this time around." 'Fabless' Companies One reason is that the chip industry has diversified from its heavy reliance on the personal-computer market. ...