Bulls and bears have answered their respective calls to arms and are really going at it in the semiconductor and equipment sectors. On one hand, Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) can't seem to find a saturation point for iPhones and iPads, and follow-on offerings from the likes of Samsung are also doing well. Everywhere you look there are more and more chips going into more products and consumer spending has picked up nicely from the depths of the recession.
On the other hand, the Tohoku earthquake has thrown the production side of chips into chaos. What's more, there's the twin notions of "sell in May and go away," and the idea that chip and equipment stocks have already had their runs and are due for a run of underperformance.
That is the scenario swirling around ASML (Nasdaq:ASML) these days, as the world's leading lithography
equipment company reports its earnings.
An OK Quarter to Start the Year
Given the push-pull surrounding the industry maybe it's only fitting that ASML's results would be a mix of good and bad news. On the positive side, ASML's reported sales were a little bit ahead of expectations. Sales dropped 5% from the fourth quarter, but nearly doubled on a year-over-year basis, as shipments slipped a bit but prices stayed strong. (For more, see Everything Investors Need To Know About Earnings.)
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