Micron Technology Inc. (MU)

All Comments on MU

  • commenter
    William
    Trent
    Mar 28 12:05 PM
    The Chip Glut Is Beyond Semi-Serious [view article]
    Chips are a global commodity, and the foreign producers are having considerable impact. Some of the data presented above are U.S. specific, while others I follow (such as the SIA Global Sales Report) are global.

    Other dynamics, such as inventory levels, are probably something that can be extrapolated. If US chipmakers are building inventory it could mean that foreign manufacturers are taking share, or it could mean that foreign manufacturers are also building inventory. In the short term the latter is usually more significant that the former but it is something to be aware of as the counter-argument.

    I would say the weakest data above, with respect to a more global chip industry, is the capacity utilization figure. With more new fabs built overseas than in the U.S., U.S. capacity utilization is less relevant to the total industry than it has been historically. By using the Fed data, I am making an implicit assumption that global fabs are all being utilized at roughly the same rate. Sometimes this will not be the case.     Reply
  • commenter
    stan
    Mar 28 10:54 AM
    The Chip Glut Is Beyond Semi-Serious [view article]
    Mr Trent ... very thought proboking analysis. I can't help wondering how the major foreign semi manufacturers would affect your conclusions.

    Japanese, Korean and Taiwinese manufacturers as well as some of the Eurpoean semi guys are major players in semiconductor supply.

    China is now the world's #1 producer of semiconductors ... true, it's for their own internal market and so doesn't directly bear on world supply/demand dynamics ... and so may be ignored for this analysis.

    I would be interested in your opinion of the effect of the foreign producers.     Reply
  • commenter
    William
    Trent
    Mar 27 01:34 PM
    The Chip Glut Is Beyond Semi-Serious [view article]
    Thanks.

    I have been (publicly) bearish for approximately 1 year, and during that time the SOX is down about 5% vs. a 10% gain in the S&P 500, so I wouldn't say the bearish outlook was invalid. Admittedly (which I have also noted) I may have missed the August bottom. The data just haven't reversed enough to warrant a turn toward bullishness on my part.

    To be specific, I think the fundamentals are going to get much worse, but the market will look past the bottom in fundamentals and the stocks will recover before the fundamentals do. I am not confident, yet, that we have reached that point but it is possible that we have. Sorry I can't be more helpful than that.

    As far as the article you referenced, I share Notable Calls' opinion.     Reply
  • commenter
    SeekingAlpha
    Editors
    Mar 27 01:22 PM
    My Website
    The Chip Glut Is Beyond Semi-Serious [view article]
    Mr. Trent, great analysis as always. But you have been bearish for so long on this sector, and it just hasn't materialized for stockholders. How do you explain that?

    Also, how do you explain the ongoing bullishness from the sell-side -- like this from yesterday:

    chip.seekingalpha.com/...     Reply
  • commenter
    Augustus
    Feb 24 11:42 PM
    S&P 500 Stocks Furthest Above, Below Moving Averages [view article]
    I don't have any data to use for comparison, however, when doing such a rank, I would expect that there would be more that 1% of the stocks that are more than 6% below the 50 day avg. And the same with the 200 day - the top of the list of 15 is only 8% below the 200 day. Wonder if there is some sort of indicator there? Something stronger than just the percentage above / below. Reply
  • commenter
    Woodrebel
    Feb 23 11:04 AM
    S&P 500 Stocks Furthest Above, Below Moving Averages [view article]
    this chart and thus this post is pretty much useless. I can't read the small font on this page and when I click to zoom in the text is distorted and unreadable. Perhaps you should do some proof reading to make sure viewers can actually read the info you thought was valuable enough to spend time collecting and then reposting. Reply
  • commenter
    Tom Mar
    Nov 28 07:01 AM
    Five Stocks For The Microsoft Vista Cycle [view article]
    seekingalpha.com/artic...


    Operator

    Our next question comes from Munish Goyal.

    Munish Goyal -

    A couple of questions. It seems like you sound pretty positive about the PC-related DRAM supply/demand equation for the second half of the year. Yet, you are not investing or putting capital. Can you reconcile that for me? Why are you not putting capital for that?

    Steve Appleton

    Munish, it's not a matter of not putting capital. We're putting capital in, we're just not allocating it to produce that particular product. The answer is really pretty simple. Just look at the last seven years, there's only been one or two that have really been okay.

    We're allocating the resources to products that we think are more differentiated and have a higher gross margin over a sustainable, longer period of time.

    One thing that I think is worth noting is you can't go out and develop an image sensor customer or MCP customer where they have to design this product in months in advance or maybe a year in advance; finally get it to market and call them up and say sorry, we decided to make some PC DRAM instead. It just doesn’t work that way.

    So we have commitments to make on these products as we build those businesses. As a result, we're going to allocate the resources to do that rather than just short-term change it.

    Having said that, it's not that we won't benefit from an improving pricing environment for a product that goes into PCs because as Mike already stated, that's still a big part of our business and we will.

    Our focus, as we’ve said now for several years, is to develop a more differentiated product. It's not to exit the PC space, it's to lessen our dependence on it and that's what we're trying to do.

    Munish Goyal -

    So, I guess the follow-up here is if as you said, out of the last seven years, there was one good year for PC-related DRAM, then why even be in this business or have such a large portion of your total business in PC-related DRAM? Why not shrink it to something more substantial? How do you think about that?

    Steve Appleton

    Well, we are shrinking it. As I said, it has continued to shrink for several years now. We're continuing on that path. So the other thing is, you say why make it at all? Well, we do have a lot of capacity in place and we do need scale, we need to continue to be cost competitive in our memory business in totality and that requires that you produce, I think, in all of these spaces.

    It's not just as simple as cutting that all off and thinking that it solves all of the problems. It doesn't. You have to go through a transition and the intent and what we've been trying to achieve is go through that transition without damaging the Company in any particular quarter or 12-month period.

    We're trying to keep a Company that's growing in the areas we want to grow, continues to make the use of efficiencies that we've learned and developed from the commodity DRAM business and keep that, by the way, knowledge base moving forward by participating in those markets. But leverage that into more differentiated product.     Reply
  • commenter
    irondoor91
    Nov 23 10:40 AM
    Let Wall Street's Best Minds Speak Out [view article]
    Yes, Wall Street is "full of brilliant minds". You can witness this by the "brilliant" performance of the in-house mutual funds that the brokerages cram down the accounts of their hapless customers. While this is a travesty, even worse is the current move afoot by the SEC and Congress to prevent the retail investor or pension plans from putting any money into funds that can short the market or use leverage.

    The S&P 500 only recently recovered back to even after six years and a 40%+ drawdown. Of course, that represents a excellent investment choice according to the regulators and the index fund distributors. Just buy and hold into the sunset.     Reply
  • commenter
    Paul Meisel
    Nov 22 11:18 AM
    Let Wall Street's Best Minds Speak Out [view article]
    If you view CNBC as 50% entertainment with some factual information as background, it isn't so bad.

    Anyone who blindly invests based on what they hear or read, without doing some of their own analysis, is doing themselves a disservice -- they should get someone else to make their investment decisions. But your main thesis here is right on. Analysts provide value by providing insight into why they think a stock should be valued at some level, and we as investors are free to weight or reject those varied opinions. A difference of opinion could result from a variety of different assumptions, and our assessment of those assumptions is what makes markets move.     Reply
  • commenter
    Christopher
    Laudani
    Sep 19 12:02 PM
    My Website
    OmniVision: Can It Recapture a Once-Rosy Picture? [view article]
    OmniVision is no longer a viable independent company. They should try to sell themselves to a larger semiconductor company before investors loose more money. Reply
  • commenter
    Faisal
    Laljee
    Sep 19 01:28 AM
    My Website
    OmniVision: Can It Recapture a Once-Rosy Picture? [view article]
    Eli - You are right. The company sits on $7 in cash, has a clean balance sheet, yet the stock has been pummelled. I agree their margins are shrinking but I wonder why their technology itself is not worth more. I feel that at under $15, it is a bargain and has less downside and more upside. Reply
  • commenter
    Gerry
    Roberts
    Jul 08 09:39 AM
    One Page Barron's Summary [view article]
    Be great to get Barrons summary by e-mail like the WSJ Reply

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