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Joe - AMD #2, reasonably successful, not very profitable
I think we have an oxymoron here.
Duke - Do you think that I2 is intentially started at .18 to limit start up problems or to utilize existing facilities.
I don't think Intel expected McKinley volume to be enough to impact capacity. Yes, it was a good idea to use a mature process but perhaps more importantly, the selection of the .18u process was probably done before some of the schedule slips.
Petz - Of course, one major disadvantage of P4's hyperthreading is that you either enable it for all programs or you disable it. But no Athlon 64 owners are forced to use a poorly written Seti-at-home client. They can just run the 32-bit version until someone does a good job with AMD64 version.
The P4 has to run that poorly designed software too. If and when an optimized set of binaries are available then P4s superior performance will further widen the gap.
One thing for sure is that P4s won't run 64-bit Unreal Tournament 2003 at all and they will be sucking wind using 32-bit UT2003 against 2 GHz 64-bit Athlon 64s.
You were just as confident that Hammer was going to be the highest performing processor on earth and I was just as confident it wouldn't beat P4. I was right and you were wrong. I suspect history will repeat itself.
Smooth - No one is going to jail for stating that they were "planning" on 750K parts, but the plans "changed".
You have a point. Didn't AMD "plan" on returning to profitable in Q2?
Petz - Doubling the cache is much less important than 133 less MHz and 2/3 the memory bandwitdth.
They tripled the cache.
ChipGuy - This is accepted in the RISC world but some AMD enthusiasts seem to feel that 64 bits is all upside for Hammer.
AMD gave them plenty of reason to expect this. IIRC they promised about a 10-15% increase by going to 64 bits.
subzero - Of course, if XBIT LABS used a new XEON with 1 MByte L3 cache (we talking workstation - right?), the Opteron would have come in fourth place - out of four. Some would call it last place - no?
One can only remember back to the stary eyed dreams of Hammer being the highest performing processor on the planet....
wbmw - Opteron 144 gets slaughtered by Pentium 4
Slaughtered is right! And as another poster pointed out, workstation benchmarks should have used the new 1Meg L3 Xeon for a true comparison. What a complete blowout that would have been!
Semi - Centrino Train is really rolling now!! Chooooo-Choooooo
I thought it wasn't pulling it's weight?
tek_prophet - AMD would not overtly lie, because in this environment, whichever employee lied would be headed for jail. After Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Imclone, et. al. do you really think a managment team would take a chance and lie? They may refuse to answer or to give guidance, but lie?
Now that Jerry's out of the picture, an outright lie is less likely. However it's just as easy to be misleading to the clueless analysts. I remember a while back when someone asked about AMD's yields and the answer came back that AMD's "line yields" were in the high 90%s. That's probably correct but it's an answer to a different question and it was intended purely to mislead. It worked just a well as a lie. AMD's current statements about SOI are just as meaningless and give us no more insight into AMD's manufacturing than a claim about good "line yields".
For those who don't know what line yield is, it's basically the number of wafers that get broken or are otherwise unuseable during processing. It has nothing to do with what we would normally think of as "yield".
YB - From the other side we have CC note that SOI is the fastest AMD process and we heard a rumor that they are preparing 750,000 A64's for the launch.
Sorry but I don't think we can believe anything AMD says at this point.
8-/
Do you currently have any positions open on AMD?
8-/
Buy calls and sell puts when the market is tanking and news is bad. Sell calls and buy puts when the market is rising and news is good.
I'd do exactly the opposite.
YB - I think the reason is that many covered calls just expired, so owners are all writing this week. That depress the price.
Good point! This kind of shoots a hole in the black-sholes model doesn't it? Supply and demand plays a big role.
wbmw - I am currently short August $7.5 Calls so I will wait another month to act. I do think those Sept $6 puts are attractive on the short side but my goals may be quite different from yours. By Sept we should see an A64 intro. The question is whether or not AMD can manufacture A64 in volume. My guess is they can not but that won't be clear until after Sept expiration. The main risk I see is a preannouncement but AMD usually holds off until the very last moment. Is any debt due before then?
wbmw - I was surprised to see this, too. Do you have any recommendations?
Sorry but I never make recommendations for other people's money.
wbmw - This is most unusual. Looks like they've opened up $1 increment strike prices. This makes for much more fun!
ChipGuy - When I go to that page the results are quite old, the top score being an old Athlon Palomino.
ChipGuy -
Where are you getting your Seti scores from?
Good read -
Dell axes high-end server
http://news.com.com/2100-1010_3-1027556.html
Duke - Nice information, thank you. But I am sure you would be refering to direct costs. I am just musing now, but it would seem appropriate to amortize the cost of a 4 billion dollar fab with a useful life of say three years over the cost of producing say .5 million Itanium 2 chips a year which is what maybe $2,600 per chip?
Well no fab has cost $4 billion yet but I suppose that someday one will. In the mean time, do you really think that Intel uses a single fab for nothing but Itanium2? A half million could be produced in pretty short order so do they just turn the lights out until next year when they'll start up production again? My guess is no to all of the above. I think the estimate of $100-150 is very conservative. I would guess much closer to $100 than $150, if not below.
Of course, I'm not a production guy. :))
I am :)
wbmw - A couple of years ago Intel was working with Seti@Home to optimize their code. I was on the beta team. They recompiled it using Intel's compiler, FP libraries and profiler. The speedup was truly dramatic. The processing time was cut by about 2/3s. Why Seti@Home never released it is a complete mystery.
wbmw -
As long as you continue to feed him he'll keep coming back. It's really that simple. He lives for this and you give him exactly what he wants.
Only a fool argues with a fool.
drjohn - In defense of Dew I clearly recall that article and that Sony was getting a special version of banias, at the time The name Celeron was not associated with the chip.
That doesn't sound like a defense to me.
Dew Sony’s “Banias Celeron” was evidently a one-time product and there seems to be no need for a similar custom design now that INTC is covering all the bases with off-the-shelf options. Regards, Dew
I find it much more likely that the article was simply in error.
Golfbum I've wrote some calls which were well into the money by today but don't see any assignment activity as of close of business yesterday.
You might not see any activity until Monday morning but if they're in the money expect to lose them.
Reseller Mike -
You may not realize this but companies like Intel and AMD typically guarantee that the DPM (defects per million) rate will be < 500 for all causes including cosmetic. This works out to about 1 in 2000. For servers the rate might even be lower.
Haddock - It's a pun. Those clever Aussies.
I see, you're right. I missed that. But in keeping with our attempts at helping Keith with his near flawless english it was still good to show him what the correct phrase is.
wbmw - The part about the design sheet is one thing. Maybe they haven't gotten around to updating it yet
Intel datasheets say things like "preliminary data" or some such phrase for years after the products are in high volume. It doesn't mean anything.
Keith - AMD Shows its Metal
The correct word here would be mettle.
YB -
I have some short July $5 puts expiring today too. Have you ever thought of writing puts?
Haddock - The call (and put) selling strategy works best with a stock that is going nowhere, but where lots of people are convinced that it is going somewhere really soon.
Remind you of any particular stock?
Keith - Is it correct to assume that there´s no real risk for the CC writer in your example, apart from "missing" out on potential gains of the stock he already owns?
That's correct, however depending on your brokerage account/balance, as the seller your shares are tied up unless you have a margin account with a good balance. Otherwise if the price tanks and you want to get out you must buy back the options so your shares are no longer obligated. Of course the option premium would be much lower by then anyway.
Not quite sure about the premium, is it a fixed amount that is determined at the point the contract between the seller and the buyer is concluded? When will the seller get this premium, right away or at the end of the "deal"?
The premium is determined purely by market forces and can change by the minute if the stock is volatile. The seller gets the premium immediately.
One other point. You're in Europe right? European options can only be exercised on the expiration date. American options can be exercised at any time up to expiration.
A question. As your use is flawless, is English your mother tongue?
Edgarcayce - I am very skeptical now as to Hector's business savvy and really wonder if he can handle this job.
Hector is sailing a course that was charted by Jerry several years ago. Hector can't be blamed for the dangerous waters. He has almost no options and very little room to maneuver. AMD's course is committed and there's no turning back.
Keith - can you give a short explanation in simple terms of how this works?
Sure. It's quite simple. I assume you know what an option is but just to review, a Call option is a contract between the buyer and the seller whereby the buyer has the right (but not the obligation) to purchase 100 shares of a given stock at the agreed upon price (called the "strike price") up to the time of expiration, which is the 3rd Saturday after the 3rd Friday of the month the option is written for. The reason for the strange wording there is because if the month starts on a Saturday then options for that month expire on the 4th Saturday. The last opportunity to trade an option is the 3rd Friday.
The seller has the obligation to deliver those shares at the agreed upon price should the buyer decide to exercise his option. The term "Covered Calls" means the seller has the shares already in his possession and can deliver them to the buyer out of his own account or inventory. If someone choses to write Calls for shares he does not currently own, that is called a "naked" position. Should the buyer chose to exercise a Call for which the seller is "naked" the seller must purchase those shares on the open market at whatever the current market price is. A a general rule, I do not write naked calls because of the risk involved.
For assuming this obligation the seller is compensated by what is called the "premium" which is the cost of the option to the buyer. Upon expiration the contract ceases to exist and the seller has no further obligation. The seller always keeps the premium regardless of further activity.
The strategy often used is for the seller to write a CC with the hope and expectation that it will expire without being exercised. The seller hopes to gain a premium as a source of income or to further add to the gain of a stagnant stock.
Using AMD as an example we find that at this moment an August $7.50 call commands a premium of about $0.25. Not a whole lot of money but it does represent over 3% for a month. The seller must realize that should the price rise above $7.50 he will not enjoy any further gain. The buyer is hoping AMD will go well above $7.50 and his money at risk will return all the price difference above $7.50.
Commissions do apply and affect the profit/loss calculations.
The opposite of a "Call" is a "Put" and we can discuss that too if you like.
YB -
AMD's share price has been behaving perfectly for a CC writing strategy. I have been quite fortunate and my expectations have played out exactly as I had hoped. Another set of CCs expires today. This set is in an IRA. Writing more CCs on Monday!
borusa - Would you be reluctant to use socket A? And if so why?
Yes I would be reluctant to use AMD products for several reasons. Primarily because every time I have purchased a motherboard with an Intel chipset the board has worked flawlessly. Every non Intel motherboard has had a problem of some kind. Always. Problems with the drivers. The USB ports don't work. The network connection doesn't work. It can't recognize the disk. Stability problems. It's always something. AMD uses chipsets from those same suppliers. I don't need the problems.
borusa -
mid and low end, AMD clearly offers better value to the consumer
So why doesn't the market respond? This description has been the motto for years now but AMD keeps losing money. Clearly being a better value hasn't worked for AMD as a business. By voting with their dollars the customer has indicated that "better value" is not all they're looking for.
Haddock - Are you calling Intel customers fools?
No. I think they know value when they see it.
Petz - You're the guys with the sour grapes, because AMD can get 80% of the floating point performance and 100% of the integer performance at 10% of the cost.
Correction: You're the guys with the sour grapes, because AMD can get 88% of the floating point performance and 88% of the integer performance but only 10% of the price.