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Couple of things
Not too surprising that there is a wide divergence of opinion being expressed by analysts about AMD. This always happens at turning points.
2ndly; I find it somewhat coincidental that the latest DELL rumors have DELL selling AMD PCs in H2, just as fab36 is ramping 65nm. Further, adding to the mystery is the tripling of AMD's $ purchases of SOI platters in 06. I assume there are some cost increases in going form 200mm to 300mm, but triple? That's a lot of platters.
Now Hector doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that would go out on that sort of a limb without some very good reasons to do so. I think it’s much more likely that contracts for the additional capacity are a done deal. However, AMD has been talking about 50m chips in 06 for awhile so we need some clarification. Hopefully that will happen in the CC. To me anyway, it's looking more and more like the only thing that’s been holding AMD back has been the lack of capacity.
On another subject; As usual we have the INTCites promising things that may or may not be realized from INTC. Frankly, given the under whelming reality of their prior promises I think I need a little more proof that INTC is no longer FUBAR-ED before I hit the panic button. Further, for some reason, they never seem to be able to believe that AMD is producing the chips they are let alone that AMD can make anything better.
Well today's INTC earnings report should be interesting. For one thing I'm really interested in the INTC ongoing shortage situation. AMD's shortages I can understand, but INTC's, give me a break. How does a company with at least 3 65nm fabs now online and less than industry standard growth continue to have shortages? Really, just what is INTC producing in all those fabs? Are yields that terrible?
SUNW retail soulutions
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060116/nym044.html?.v=30
What a mess INTC is.
http://www.digit-life.com/news.html#975194499
802.11n, finally.
http://www.mobilepipeline.com/news/175803832
Me...
MIMO is going to be a very big improvement over a,b,g. Belkin jumped the gun and may not be completely compatible with the final standard, but it provides a taste of what's coming.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=184316
Well, that was painful.
Not as bad as it could have been, but I would rather have sat through a root canal than the wallet-ectomy I got. Well, look at it this way, we got rid of nearly 50m of the weakest hands for a little over 2 bucks, probably not a bad deal. Considering the way the scavengers ran in at the end of the day this was probably the low before earnings. Especially so since Monday is a holiday and that just leaves Tuesday for more damage to be inflicted. The actual earnings dates are usually relatively calm with everyone having already taken positions.
Hopefully AMD's earnings will live up to the markets expectations. What has happened in essence is that we traded low-earnings expectation owners for higher-expectation owners which might not be that hot for the stock’s price if AMD earnings are perceived to be lacking in some way. The buyers today probably don't have the event horizon of a long or they would have been in AMD long ago.
sorry about the dups, cable is going crazy today.
you...
1. Any runup due to Dell rumors will dissipate in the likely event this turns out to be only another of the annual Dell/Intel negotiations;
2. Intel seems to be hitting stride on 65nm; the market probably sees this as positive for AMD's process but history argues otherwise - the two processes are so different that Intel's success says nothing about the potential for AMD's success with this technology. Some examples:
me...
Well, I still think the main reason DELL hasn't gone with AMD is that AMD couldn't guarantee to supply the number of parts needed. DELL will continue to flirt with AMD, keeping up the R&D, and possibly doing some boutique kind of projects with channel processors until AMD can guarantee support. That won't happen until at least the end of the 2nd Q. Until then I expect AMD to continue having trouble supplying its' current partners.
As far as INTC 65nm, I think the jury is still out about how good it is. For one thing we don't know if the latest delays have anything to do with 65nm or are design issues. Time will tell. As far as AMD's 65nm process goes, we know even less.
you...
1. Any runup due to Dell rumors will dissipate in the likely event this turns out to be only another of the annual Dell/Intel negotiations;
2. Intel seems to be hitting stride on 65nm; the market probably sees this as positive for AMD's process but history argues otherwise - the two processes are so different that Intel's success says nothing about the potential for AMD's success with this technology. Some examples:
me...
Well, I still think the main reason DELL hasn't gone with AMD is that AMD couldn't guarantee to supply the number of parts needed. DELL will continue to flirt with AMD, keeping up the R&D, and possibly doing some boutique kind of projects with channel processors until AMD can guarantee support. That won't happen until at least the end of the 2nd Q. Until then I expect AMD to continue having trouble supplying its' current partners.
As far as INTC 65nm, I think the jury is still out about how good it is. For one thing we don't know if the latest delays have anything to do with 65nm or are design issues. Time will tell. As far as AMD's 65nm process goes, we know even less.
you...
1. Any runup due to Dell rumors will dissipate in the likely event this turns out to be only another of the annual Dell/Intel negotiations;
2. Intel seems to be hitting stride on 65nm; the market probably sees this as positive for AMD's process but history argues otherwise - the two processes are so different that Intel's success says nothing about the potential for AMD's success with this technology. Some examples:
me...
Well, I still think the main reason DELL hasn't gone with AMD is that AMD couldn't guarantee to supply the number of parts needed. DELL will continue to flirt with AMD, keeping up the R&D, and possibly doing some boutique kind of projects with channel processors until AMD can guarantee support. That won't happen until at least the end of the 2nd Q. Until then I expect AMD to continue having trouble supplying its' current partners.
As far as INTC 65nm, I think the jury is still out about how good it is. For one thing we don't know if the latest delays have anything to do with 65nm or are design issues. Time will tell. As far as AMD's 65nm process goes, we know even less.
you...
I bought a half-position this morning based on the news last night. Once a trader, always a trader. But I also shorted a
few other things.
me...
What's a half position? I'm basically a buy and hold guy who only trades to alleviate the tedium or when things really get out of wack.
you...
I'm holding out for at least another month, and probably longer.
me...
Well, we're off to a rather rocky start this morning, but I would guess this is just carryover from yesterday. Looks like I should have played a little with the stock. Just looked at it again, and we're recovering rather quickly. We still may be green by days end.
Another way to look at today
For less than a buck we got rid of the weakest 25m AMD shares. Given that it took just 15m shares to raise AMD's price $1.33 the previous day and 25m shares today could only drop AMD $.92 it sounds like there is still an on-balance demand for AMD stock. This seems especially noteworthy given the day the general market had. All in all it seems like a good deal to have gotten rid of the weak hands this soon and likely bodes well for tomorrow unless the general market continues to drop.
One would think that every AMD weak kneed stock holder would have headed for the doors as soon as it became apparent that a downdraft was under way. Still I suppose there were a few that for whatever reason didn't punch the sell button. These guys could sell tomorrow, we'll see.
Dispite the sell-off.
There remains a lot of interest in AMD as evidenced by the 25m shares traded. Lest we forget on Dec 30 the closing AMD price was $30.60, so that at $35.35 AMD is still up $4.75 in less than 2 weeks. That represents a %15 increase that was probably due for a correction of some sort. Not to mention that the indexes were all down with the SOXX off 7.16. Hard to tell how much of this was the mo/mo guys and others locking down profits going into earnings and how much was due to the general market turndown. But considering how AMD has defied gravity lately no matter what the market has done one would have to guess that most of the selling was by the risk averse. All it really means to me so far is that AMD is up to its' usual pre-earnings volatility. Anyway, tomorrow should be interesting.
you...
I can live with this "boredom" continuing!! :)
me...
Well, I'll admit I don't have a clue what is going to happen between now and earnings, but a sell off wouldn't surprise me. Offsetting that though is the strength AMD has been exhibiting lately on very decent volume. It's hard to imagine the latest wave of buyers hasn’t been aware of the infamous AMD pre/post earnings drops. Assuming that is the case these same buyers may see any noticeable drop as another buying opportunity? Further, it seems that the vast majority of institutional holders has been talking to niceguy and isn’t selling.
In any case, any correction should take place rather rapidly as long as AMD comes in with earnings the market can live with.
Well I was wondering how long it would be?
Looks like the people that don't want to wait around for earnings are starting to make their move. Kind of predictable given the recent run up. Let's see if the buying returns and is able to compensate for the "weak kneed" sellers.
AMD looks very short term vulnerable here, and will probably be punished some if it doesn't come in with earnings that the market expects. The problem is that AMD just might exceed market expectations and medium term the stock still looks pretty undervalued. So what to do, try to time the market or just hold on for the inevitable post-earnings rebound? What to do, what to do?
Well, as I've already said, I'm staying put. While there may be some money to be made by the nimble, it looks like the bigger risk is in having to chase the stock later. A little drop from here might not be a bad thing to create a base for further expansion. Besides I getting bored with this up every day stuff, yeah, right that's it.
Makes you wonder about all those analysts that have a hold, sell or just give it away on AMD. Big dichotomy of opinion taking shape. I hope AMD has the 2X4 needed, in the form of earnings, to beat some sense into those analysts still singing the INTC mantra "just wait for next quarter". Still, I'm sure more than one of those guys still thinks the 70 virgins and rivers of honey await them if they just hold on a little longer.
you...
LOL!!! Really, there's still plenty of time for you to get out of your money-losing INTC shares, and get into some AMD shares, smoothie. You'll be kicking yourself in a year if you don't. Possibly kicking yourself in a few months, even. :)
me...
There's really nothing you can say that will make these guys/gals feel any worse than they already do having eaten the bitter fruit from the tree of "what might have been". Just coming to this board is a form of atonement, a putting on of a cilice of thorns so to speak. Kind of like a purgatory where the flames of hell only get hotter with every AMD move upward. Yet, such is the power of faith that they continue to return still spouting the INTC gospel. These are the INTC martyrs that gladly face the flames of self-recrimination knowing full well that INTC is the only true god. Such is the power of belief that it belies all arguments against the craven idol.
Well guys/gals, you lucky because the bus to opportunity comes this way often. Perhaps next time though you will examine the buss more closely as the opportunity buss and the bus to hell can look very much alike. Not all busses lead to opportunity though, and the important thing is to be willing to transfer to another bus without letting your biases get in the way. Sticking with a dead horse only gets smellier as time goes on.
you...
AMD partisans have been saying that for the last two years.
Two years of Dell growing faster than its competitors and
gaining server market share.
me...
Well, the market doesn't seem to be buying it. Dell's earnings have disappointed for quite a while now.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=2y&s=DELL&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=amd
You...
The weird thing is that Intel has had an extended period of inferior products. Dell has not jumped ship throughout this period, so why should Dell jump when Intel is supposed to get more competitive?
Me...
Well, from my point of view it appears the Dell has done about everything it can without coming out and selling complete PCs from AMD. To me it looks like they have been testing the waters for a long time now. There was that rumor about Dell buying a distributor to get AMD processor chips awhile back, and they have done some aggressive pricing on AMD parts.
Perhaps they have determined that there is enough evidence of demand/profit capability to take it to the next level. DELL wouldn't have to embrace AMD wholly to start selling AMD processor based PCs. They could, as a first step, start producing selected PCs based on chips they get through the distributor channels and if things work out expand into a more direct relationship with AMD. Seems like a possible low cost/low risk possible solution to let DELL further test the waters.
In any case, this two-faced policy of selling AMD parts while disparaging AMD isn't going to last much longer. To continue ignoring AMD is almost a guarantee of reduced market share in the future.
Cray
Anyone know what is going on?
Cray selected results
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=105798
Me...
Sounds like things are slowly improving?
you...
This reminds me so much of the 2000 AMD runup. Then, as now, institutions were accumulating. I remember their ownership reaching 96% of AMD's float. (Speaking of the float...whatever happend to the 25%, or so, shares that were not in the float?) I also rememeber just as the institutional buying raised AMD to the heights there selling pushed AMD into the cellar.
me...
Yeah, things really are a lot different this time around. Back then AMD was basically a one trick pony, with little presence in either the server or laptop markets. Further, AMD was a perennial underdog to INTC's manufacturing abilities, both in capacity and acumen. Add to that the interconnect technology AMD has created since then, along with the on-board memory controller INTC still doesn't have, and the only thing surprising is that it's taken so long for the market to wake up to the changes.
What's going on is no fluke, AMD has done its' homework and is now in the process of reaping the rewards. As an aside, it also doesn't hurt that INTC seems to be continuing its' fumbling ways. It really is amazing the way little AMD seems to have INTC's number. Makes you wonder who the road-kill is?
Analysts should read this board
They would have known a long time ago what is only now becoming apparent to a few of them.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28863
you...
Does anyone have any thoughts about holding AMD through earnings announcement?
What will Spansion's IPO do to AMD revenue numbers? Will the street see the lower amount and take it as a disappointment?
me...
As far as Spansion goes, I'm not sure about how AMD is going to report, but the effect should be to reduce AMD's earnings liability by their reduced ownership. This is good while SPSN is losing money, but cuts the other way as soon as it becomes profitable. The net effect on earnings should be relatively minor, unless they decide to do a quarter shift in earnings recognition. I'm not up on the FASB rules for handling this sort of situation, but the most reasonable scenario seems like a proration of earnings based on time of ownership, but I don't know. Is there an accountant/CPA on board?
AMD is fully valued it you compare its' price to INTC's. New AMD investors seem to be betting on the come. My gut says the market is expecting AMD to at least equal INTC's earnings, which isn't out of the realm of possibility, but does involve a certain leap of faith. The tiebreakers are going to be the CC, and general market conditions. Personally, I haven't traded AMD for well over a year now, for the same reason I don't play in the options market, I just don't have no rhythm. But then that's just me; there have definitely been opportunities to trade AMD during the last year or so.
The real problem with AMD's earnings at this point is their unpredictability. As I've said before, earnings are not a good indicator of a company’s health at turning points, on either the way up or down. After a nadir, good companies have so many things to do with the added revenues that expenses can easily eat up added revenues. AMD may be in that position for a few more quarters. Of course the market only looks at the bottom line and doesn't consider the future payback of the investments. Revenues are a better thing to look at in such circumstances, as they are more likely to reflect the true health of the company.
Anyway, I'll probably just hold on and hope for the best with a long-term view towards the future. Until the fundamentals change I'm probably going to just stay where I am.
There is something to be said for AMD's deliberateness. What happened to not releasing something before it's ready? If this turns out to be more than just a bios fix problem INTC is going to get slamed again. Worse this could be an indicator that INTC will have the same sort of problems at 65nm that it had with 90nm. I wonder who will buy these defective chips? I guess it's true there is a sucker born every day.
INTC D900 problems from Saxman.
http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/9256
Universal communicator
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060106/bs_nm/electronics_yahoo_go_dc
Me..
I see no reason why my cell phone shouldn't have the ability to interface with my home computer. To me this would be the perfect controlling device.
I'm of the opinion that there isn't enough bandwidth, no matter how creative the engineers get, to handle the features planed for full bodied WIFI and WiMax systems. Having said that there is the possibility that some sort of limited area mesh grid could evolve that would be able to handle much more data than todays widely disbursed towers. Perhaps a system of a couple of blocks radius with every home computer in that area acting as both a sender and reciever of information, forwarding on signals to more remote devices that the tower signals won't reach?
Anyway, for right now it looks like Fiber is going to be the backbone of the evolving data communication systems, while wireless will be ideal for control, voice communications and short bursts of media information.
you...
My son in-laws truck has a cruise controll system that backs the throttle off when he gets too close to the vihicle in front of him. It also gives him an aural and visual cue when he's too close to an object on the right side. If some things stopped in the road it warns him even around curves.
me...
I would expect this to show up in the commercial field first, lots of advantages, particularly for a semi. It took awhile for ABS brakes to be adopted in the car market where things are a lot more price sensitive. Eventually though, one would expect things like this to start showing up on high-priced models first and then working their way through the lineup.
I'm sure there's a certain part of the population that enjoys driving, and would resist any moves to take control away from them, but I hate driving anymore and would just as soon have a better qualified, sensor-loaded car, take the tedium. Almost anywhere you go in L.A., at almost any time, it's going to involve some bumper to bumper traffic any more. I imagine having the machines doing the driving would probably speed things up, especially if they could reroute to less congested routes based on wireless automatic updates from a sensor street grid and computer system.
you...
You do realize that currents cars already typically have
around 25 processors in them, luxury cars perhaps twice
as many. PowerPC in particular has a strong presence
in automotive embedded control.
Me...
Yes, I realize that, but none of those processors are involved in controlling the auto in the way I see it. What I want is a totally autonomous vehicle that takes me where I want to go based on verbal commands I give it. Of course we're a long ways away from such a vehicle, but I could see sensors being controlled by "Smart Silicon" that prevent me from rear-ending the car in front of me. That alone would probably save billions of dollars in repairs to automobiles each year.
I don't know if it's just me, but it seems to me that the driving skills of most of my fellow road sharers have degraded a lot over the years. People drive too fast, at least here in L.A., and have too many distractions which leads to too many accidents. This will inevitably result in less human control of vehicles and more by smart sensors.
you...
As for the current supposed supply "problems", I worry a lot more about H1 demand. Can AMD win enough accounts to sell out their available capacity?
Me...
Well, I really can't say. I expect you’re a lot closer to the supply channels than I am. All I do is read a lot and try to make sense of it all. However, there are a couple of considerations:
First, ever since the introduction of the Opteron, despite huge increases in capacity, there has never been a corresponding increase in inventory. How well one can extrapolate those results with the additional capacity fab36 will provide is anyone’s guess. But given the way AMD has managed the capacity issue for the last year or so I'm inclined to believe that they will increase capacity with increases in demand. At least they are now in charge of the capacity issue rather than being a slave to it. Of course this then implies increasing demand from the OEMs. One of the things I'm extremely interested in is how many projects were put on the back burner because AMD couldn't promise adequate supplies. Personally, I think there are a lot of things in the pipeline that will only start showing up in h206, but then that's my gut talking again. But discounting any new products that may lie ahead, there is still plenty of room for AMD growth in the server and laptop areas with existing products. In short I expect AMD to continue gaining market share against INTC, probably at an accelerating rate, over at least the short term.
2ndly, as I posted yesterday the demand for "Smart Silicon" isn't going to decrease any. In fact I expect a period of strong demand as the PC morphs into a more friendly entertainment oriented device for the home. Further, I expect other areas to take on more importance as "Silicon Smarts" become more pervasive. Just from a productivity point of view the demand for smarter devices, to replace costly human labor, is going to grow. Also, the demands being placed humans in daily living are only going to continue growing. It scares the hell out of me to be driving down the freeway and have the woman in the car next to me doing her eyebrows with one hand and holding a cell phone in her ear with the other. Because humans are notoriously deficient at repetitive and tedious tasks, the automobile begs for non-human intervention. Transportation is just one area that could use some "Silicon Smarts", but certainly not the only one. In short I see a market demanding more and ever smarter devices that inevitably involve "Smart Silicon". Limiting ones view of AMD or INTC to just PCs is ignoring a much bigger picture that's only now starting to unfold.
Keith, you and your European brethern must be buying skiploaders to haul the money home, especially given the turn around in the value of the $. 05 was good, 06 will be even better.
This head of steam AMD now has isn't going to let the company slow down anytime soon. I just hope the supply problems get resolved soon. I hate to see lost sales because of capacity problems. I wonder when we'll be seeing the first 90nm/300mm parts on the market?
You...
Who is it that has a price target of $10?
I don't know, but last time I looked I think I came to the conclusion it was someone that no longer followed AMD. For some reason these opinions just seem to get carried over forever unless they're changed. According to Yahoo, there are still 18 holds, 4 sells and 2 strong sells on AMD.
today's action.
While I posted that I expected AMD would surpass recent highs by earnings time, I didn't expect it to happen today. Ok, it hasn't happened yet, but given that 2 influential companies have now raised the bar to $40, it's going to be difficult for the rest of the herd to retain their sell/hold recommendations.
I expect we'll see quite a few more analysts displaying a change of heart as we get closer to earnings. Even the most hard core INTC biased of the bunch doesn't want to have a dump on AMD when AMD earnings come out north of $.30. Further, by now the houses will have privately gotten their best customers into AMD so it's time to turn off the dump and grab for the pump.
Eric Kim
http://business.goldsea.com/Kime/kime.html
It's becoming more and more obvious that Otellini is no Barrett. While that isn't much of a compliment, it's a definite improvement for INTC. It's beginning to look like Otellini took a hard look at GE and liked what he saw. The question is can he pull it off? There is a long ways to go from where INTC is now to being a GE with complete product lines in other businesses.
One of the reasons I started getting out of INTC back in 98 was because Barrett was throwing money at the diversification wall, hoping something would stick. I think Otelline is definitely on the right path with platformization, which seems much more thought out compared to what Barrett did. Still this is not something that is going to happen overnight and is going to tug INTC in directions it has never ventured into in the past. Not an easy thing for a company of INTC’s size and manufacturing oriented history to accomplish.
The good news for AMD fans is that while INTC may succeed in transforming itself, there is and will be so much demand for smart silicon over the next few years that AMD should do very well no matter what INTC does. In case anyone hasn't noticed we're just now entering another period of high demand for smart silicon. This period could dwarf previous expansions.
3 TBs home storage anyone?
I don't know about the rest of you, but this sounds like something I could use. From the SaxPerson.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-03-2006/0004241446&...
802.16, mobile WiMax, sometime.
you...
Multimedia port standardization is all fine and dandy, but what I want is a wireless multimedia standard. If I want to watch TV on my PC or view my PC screen from my TV there should be a wireless standard for swapping input devices.
me...
WiMax
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3569511
802.11n, a,b,g successor, should provide enough bandwidth for the home if we ever see it. Of course this does nothing to unhinge DRM as it will undoubtedly be required in any setup that's used to view protected media. It would be nice to get rid of all those nasty cables, but who knows how well wireless will work? Right now if you keep your cables under 30' in length most cables will transmit a very good picture whether analog or digital. Long runs of HDMI cables can cause trasmission problems.
WiFi
http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/neasia/002271
You...
bobs10, there will probably be hacks or workarounds within months of widespread introduction.
me...
Yeah, that's kind of what I think. It's kind of like locks on your door thinking. No determined thief is going to be detered, but they do keep the curious from invading your privacy.
Today's market
A couple of things I've not seen mentioned yet. One is the necessity for IRA holders over 72 to make a distribution based on their life expectancy before year-end. I was forced to sell some of my mother's AMD for that very reason. Second, January is bonus time and a lot of those funds get invested in the market.
A cooling off may be a good thing for AMD as it seems to be fairly valued where it is now, given what is known. AMD is still being valued a lot higher than INTC and the analysts are projecting less earnings than INTC for q4. I don't expect much happening in the way of change in the analyst’s positions before earnings. Of course by then it will be too late as the market will probably over-shoot fair value betting on continued exceptional growth.
Anyway, I expect this correction to be less pronounced than other recent ones, with AMD's price somewhat above it's recent high by earnings.
You...
Sounds more like a DRM port to me so it remains to be seen if this is an improvement.
Me...
Yeah, but like it or not some form of DRM is going to be the norm. I'm pretty sure All PCs built today support it, certainly all INTC's. All peripheral devices will soon have chips that also support it. If you have any device that doesn't support it in your media system you won't be able to access the DRM protected media.
Just another mouse trap waiting for a smarter rat to figure it out. DisplayPort in itself doesn't mean DRM, it's just enables an option the media creators can use. I suspect the way it will work is that the media will trigger software routines that will check for total DRM hardware compliance before allowing the use of the protected media.
Kind of sounds like the SONY/BMG thing we just went through, but this time it will be above board and your only options will be to either go with DRM or not use the protected media.