Merrill cuts chip equip stocks (AMAT, KLAC, NVLS)
By Emily Church [CBS MarketWatch]
Merrill Lynch cut its ratings, 2003 and in some cases 2002 earnings and sales estimates on 13 semiconductor equipment stocks, telling clients overnight "we believe the likelihood of a pause in semiconductor equipment orders in the second half of 2002 has significantly increased over the past several weeks." Stocks cut to midterm buys from strong buys include: Applied Materials (AMAT) , KLA-Tencor (KLAC) , Lam Research (LRCX) , Novellus (NVLS) , MKS Instruments (MKSI) and Entegris (ENTG) .
