"The above is not doubt good news, and should fuel bullishness in the sector," commented Analyst Byron Walker at UBS Warburg. "The problem we have with the above data is, it doesn't seem to correlate with reported conditions from the industry." Therefore, Walker said he remains negative on the sector, and anticipates order levels to deteriorate further in September.
J.P. Morgan H&Q's Eric Chen said SEMI's bookings numbers supported indications of stabilization, but he thinks order rates will keep "bouncing along the bottom" until clear signals of demand for additional capacity emerges. Chen thinks that won't happen before the second-half of 2002. Until then, he expects capital equipment stocks to remain range bound.
Among stocks in the sector, Applied Materials (AMAT) closed Tuesday down $1.23 at $42.01, KLA-Tencor (KLAC) ended down $2.36 at $46.35 and Novellus Systems (NVLS) finished off $1.78 at $44.40.
Where you stand depends on where you sit: the importance of the stronger than expected 0.67 semi equipment book/bill ratio appears to vary widely and be tied to each firm's pre-release opinion.
A sample: Merrill Lynch says the industry is clearly entering a trough, making the stocks very attractive,
while CSFB says the report is analytically insignificant and says that the uptick in bookings is not sustainable.
Last night, SEMI reported book-to-bill numbers for October.
North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $651.1 million in orders in October 2001 and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.71(consensus 0.68) (three analysts).
The bookings figure is 5% above the revised September 2001 level of $619.2 million and 78% below the $2.99 billion in orders posted in October 2000.