I don’t know squat about AMAT or the sector/industry but if they clearly trade at a reasonable multiple for what they are compared to others yet they just announced they got a contract equal to 1/5 a year’s revenue in the “alt. energy” business… which trades at an astronomical multiple. Could they spin this off? Or is this something the market has already priced in? Any AMAT experts?
70% of business is still in something that I suspect to be week for the next few quarters. And whose demand is confusing to predict. As for Solar biz, thin film is a improvement over wafer technology but a thin film of silicon is still silicon, and assuming silicon pricing continues the trends that have been so far, this could be a lot of hype about nothing. By comparison FSLR (not to forget that it’s not the least bit dependent on silicon prices) has been working on this since mid 90’s and although AMAT expertise in silicon goes back that far, their experience in Solar PV is still at a very infancy stage. All you can bank on is continued R&D/CapEx, and hope to god that it becomes more cost viable. Believe it or not i think this story still rest on it’s competitive position against KLAC and others. But in the short term headlines of contract wins seem to be what’s driving the stock. Not sure if it is sustainable Dont really know the name well, just my $0.02