Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[TJ Parker]

The economy is showing signs of recovery. Semi btob trend is up, .97

hrm. with respect to revenues, semi book-to-bill is already like a 1st derivative quantity (roughly, in the calculus sense of 'derivative', not the jpmorgan sense), predicting how revenues should increase over time. but betting on changes in the book-to-bill is now looking at 2nd derivatives. i.e. saying the b2b is increasing is still only saying that projected billings (revenues) are decreasing less slowly, since the 1st derivative quantity (the b2b) is below 1.

anyway, i guess this is more of a question than anything else but: in looking at b2b #'s, i would generally think that the important factors (in some simple model of demand etc.) is to focus on where it is with respect to 1, and what the magnitude of the changes are. but until it gets to 1, the trend still hasn't even stabilized at its lower levels ....