The real slowdown is in expectations

Bloomberg ran this article about Midsouth Bank.  They took down a 20 mil infusion from the government, then tried to actively market 250 mil in loans.  They couldn’t drum up any business.

What is different about this economic downturn is the abject caution, the inverse behavior of the prior couple of decades:

MidSouth, which has $937 million in assets and 34 branches in southern Louisiana and southeast Texas, is struggling to put its TARP money to work, Cloutier said.

While he has some fresh borrowers, people are “very, very nervous” about taking on significant new debt, the 61-year-old banker said.

Right.  With such low visibility, and so many talking heads telling people how deep the problems are, its very hard to get a clear picture of potential return on investment.  Taking on a lot of debt right now certainly would seem to be the opposite of what most people are trying to do.

“Credit hasn’t tightened, but the ability to find creditworthy borrowers has tightened,” he said.

Most of the loan demand out there is from the overleveraged who need to refinance.  Don’t forget, banks are affected by that same unclear return on investment that business owners are.  They have to err on the side of caution.  A lot of the federal money has come with onerous coupons attached.  In order to cover the spread between the dividend payments due to the government and the rates charged to borrowers, banks probably lose money on loans here.  If you’re paying the government 8% to borrow money, why would you want to write mortgages at 4.5% with that money?

This is why manipulating rates ultimately doesn’t work.  The Fed has pushed rates down while risk has gone up substantially.  Risk should mean higher rates, not lower ones, you idiots.  Banks can’t possibly turn a profit on new business with this spread and it’s unclear what would alleviate this massive pressure on their models.  Ultimately, the government probably has to forgive these coupons to restart lending.  In the meantime, dear taxpayer… take heart.  At least they’re not making new bad loans.

Michael Moore working on film about finance industry abuses

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/michael-moore-wants-wall-street-scuttlebutt/

Can’t wait to see it.

Memory spot prices drift lower, rush order stories abound

DRAM spot prices have given back most of their gains since the post Lunar New Year rally.

NAND spot has come in slightly but is still up quite a bit since the holiday.

Taiwan has set a budget of $2 billion to encourage consolidation among the DRAM industry.  Micron (MU) has been actively seeking a key role in the Taiwan memory industry’s restructuring and stands to benefit greatly from the inevitable reduced capacity coming from Taiwan after the dust settles.

Digitimes is flush with stories of better notebook trends in February, led by Asustek, HP, Apple and Toshiba.  End market demand still remains in question, but there is some near-term inventory restocking, according to most of these stories.  Digitimes claims Taiwan Semiconductor has seen some rush orders lately from Qualcomm (QCOM), Infineon (IFX) and MediaTek and has recalled some furloughed workers, according to the Commercial Times.  Xilinx (XLNX) and Altera (ALTR) have firmed up due to 3G deployments in China following new license awards last month.

The Skew:  Seems kind of early for inventory restocking to rush back significantly but semis tend to overreact.  Tech has been acting better than the rest of the market for the last several sessions.  Valuations in the semiconductor space are better on a price to book value than they’ve been several years but the demand environment is highly uncertain.  The problem is earnings estimates have come down pretty significantly, too, and will likely stay punk till the second half at least.  February strength is very unseasonable and is likely related to overly aggressive inventory destocking.  It won’t be a sustainable pick-up without better economic tone.

IDC predicts down processor shipments in 1Q/2Q:2009

IDC says processor shipments dropped 17% in Q4, the worst decline since they started collecting the data in 1996.  Netbooks, at a $300-400 price point, helped units a lot – if not for them, units would have dropped over 20%.  IDC says processor shipments remain weak and will likely drop again in Q1 and Q2.

The Skew:  Keep in mind the PC industry is huge.  Unit shipments for 2008 were 30.8 billion.  Netbooks are having very significant impact in order to move the bar on industry unit shipments like that.  That trend will only continue, depressing average selling prices and reducing revenue generated from notebooks as netbooks are superior portable computers relative to existing notebooks for the needs of most users – they’re smaller, lighter, robust enough to run multiple applications and have longer battery life.  In all seriousness, my netbook has turned “bringing my computer” from lugging a burdensome bag of bricks into something I don’t think twice about anymore.  It’s that significant a difference.
   PC shipments continue to weaken in this crummy and uncertain environment.

A little more material on Applied Materials (AMAT)

A couple of things stuck out on the call.  First off, about a quarter of a billion dollars of orders fell out of the order book because its been there more than 12 months.  Orders, typically the driving force of semicap company stock prices, are a really poor indicator of future demand trends over the long-term.  Using them seems completely at odds with long-term forecasting, which is what you need to do to buy heavy cyclical stocks like AMAT.  Stock picking is more about perceiving future perception than anticipating future reality.

Solar orders were much weaker than expectations and the company indicated thin-film customers are having difficulty securing financing for future projects.  Near-term, I still believe solar is vulnerable as existing projects are hitting snags due to the credit crunch.  The stimulus package may loosen this market up in the future but that may take quite some time.

SaaS spending intentions fall

RBC/Changewave did a survey of IT managers.  Not surprisingly, spending intentions are dropping as the economy weakens.  An interesting chart from the report:

Note willingness to spend on SaaS solutions has dropped to its lowest level since they began the survey.  Salesforce.com (CRM), the poster child for SaaS, may be in for a rougher environment.

The Skew:  Pretty sure I’m going to be a short-seller of CRM soon.

Applied Materials (AMAT) 4Q:2008 results

Revenues in-line with orders well below lowered expectations.  New orders down 59% – silicon off 79% q/q, display –60% q/q, even mighty solar down 34% q/q.  The company declined to guide for next quarter but then completed the sentence by saying revenues would probably be down 30% q/q, which would probably put revenues at about 1 billion for Q1, ~5% below the street’s expectations.  The company indicated they see no near-term return to order growth.  When asked about the recent memory price hikes and whether they were seeing any improvement as a result, they indicated the memory price strength was due to supply cuts and not incremental demand.

The Skew:  With semiconductor utilization averaging in the mid 40s for most major producers, its very hard to imagine a scenario where capacity additions come on in a significant way.  Think of it this way:  if business doubled from current levels for semiconductor manufacturers, they would move to 90% utilization and be able to produce enough to meet demand with existing capacity.  Process changes, such as Intel’s conversion to 32 nanometer technology, will provide some opportunity for semiconductor equipment companies, but a return to the heady days of yesteryear are unlikely.

Nvidia (NVDA) 4Q:2009 results

Revenue reported slightly below consensus after pre-announcing what was thought to be a kitchen sink quarter.  Gross margins were well below the street, coming in at 28.4% non-GAAP with the street at 37.5%.  They expect next quarter’s revenues to be flat to up slightly and gross margins in the mid-30s.  Channel inventories have come down substantially to roughly 1 month of inventory on hand.

The Skew:  They’re certainly set up for improvement.  Again, the rate of a recovery is the big question.  While Nvidia’s revenue run rates are likely to bottom out and business can improve from here, the stock at $9 is anticipating that.  I think investors expected a better outlook and the gross margin dip has to give pause.  It’s interesting under $8.

Research In Motion (RIMM) updates outlook

RIMM says subscriber additions will be 20% better and that gross margins will be at the low end of forecasts.  They predict a return to a more normalized subscriber addition rate (much slower!) for the following quarter as the holiday surge is not sustainable.

The Skew: This contradicts some intra-quarter buzz that gross margins were trending better.  It also confirms that the Storm and Bold, the strongest part of the product portfolio, are more expensive to produce.  RIMM has a series of 3G upgrades to the line scheduled for this year.  As new products come online, expect margins to continue to see pressure until volumes become significant.
   Blackberry street pricing has become much more competitive, with handsets being offered in the $19 – 99 range.  Historically, carriers have subsidized handsets in order to grow subscriber counts.   Smartphones, because of their data plan needs, tend to carry higher ARPU for subscribers.  It would follow that carriers would be eating the lower handset pricing in order to recapture larger ongoing subscriber fees.  RIMM’s gross margin issues suggest they are bearing some of the cost of the more aggressive pricing, which is a change if so.
   While the company’s prospects are certainly better than almost any other handset manufacturer, the long-term chart still suggests a much lower stock price in the future.

Can you bail out a ship with more water?

Treasury Secretary Geithner is expected to unveil the new and improved federal bailout package, but it sounds very much like the old and disproved bailout package.

Yet another 250-500 billion will be set aside to specifically deal with toxic assets.  In an effort to further diversify the risk matrix of the financial community, private investors will be encouraged to lever up and buy assets.  Keep in mind, these assets are for sale now.  Private investors could buy them for cents on the dollar as it stands now.  Due diligence on the sale of these assets to sophisticated private investors is likely to have the unintended effect of further exposing mismanagement at banks.

There is discussion of using FDIC insurance and low financing terms as incentives for the private sector to buy the bad loans.  FDIC insurance of toxic assets is the most morally corrupt mandate misuse yet.  The FDIC is supposed to protect deposits – cash money in the bank.  Using the same entity to provide insurance for toxic assets puts deposits at risk.  It is incorrect both morally and mathematically to put hard savings in the same pool of risk as toxic assets and will likely degrade confidence in the trustworthiness of the banking system, not shore it up as they intend to do.

Another component will expand a 200 billion dollar Federal Reserve program to 1/2 – 1 trillion to unfreeze commercial, student, auto and credit card loans.  These markets are frozen because consumers are overleveraged and losing their jobs.  Aren’t these effectively no doc loans for the masses with federal backing and a lower than market rate coupon?  Isn’t that how we got here in the first place but worse?

Capital levels at banks will be reviewed.  Uhm.  That’s a good idea.  Are you kidding me?  You’ve thrown hundreds of billions into these loss factories.  No one has reviewed them?  Where are the risk controls here?  Do these people have any idea what they’re doing at all?  Answer:  no, that’s why they want the private sector to sort it out and why they’re leaving the existing managements in place at the banks.  They really don’t have any idea at all and they’d rather defer to the group of experts that so expertly screwed this up.

$50 billion will be set aside to avert imminent foreclosures.  This is the wrong kind of fix.  These people should have to right-size their lifestyle with their economic reality, not have their economic reality altered to suit their lifestyle.  Sometimes we make mistakes and have to live with the consequences.  It’s sad that people may lose their houses but if they’re really locked into a financial arrangement that they can’t ever afford, they’re probably in the wrong house.

When a ship takes on too much water, it needs to be bailed out.  When that ship has a breach in the hull, the hull must be repaired while the bailing occurs.  When one tries to bail out a ship by pouring more water into it without plugging the leaky hull, the ship will sink to the bottom.

Tech roundup – February 10, 2009

Global Equities Research out with a piece on salesforce.com (CRM) questioning the revenue recognition of the well-publicized Merrill Lynch 25,000 seat deal signed in February 2007.  According to the analyst, not a single Merrill employee was live in the system as of September 2008.  He also talks about 10-15% of the base potentially downgrading from $65/mo to $9/mo service.

The Skew:  No employee was live as of 6 months ago?  What about now?  There are about a dozen typos in his piece including my personal favorite, “CRM market to shrink by 3% - as Shit in Industry Structure are underway”.  CRM is a very expensive software stock – its one of the only “cloud” pure-plays – their service is basically delivered entirely over the internet.  As such, its controversial and either loved or hated as exhibited by its very high P/E and reasonably high short interest.  No edge, just an out of the ordinary call on Global Equities Research’s part.

Piper upgrades Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) to a buy, using $2.95 in EPS for 2010.  Yesterday ENER reported more stable gross margins than expected and threw out a very wide range of lowered guidance for the next couple of quarters.  The company is expected to be a beneficiary of the Obama administration’s green stimulus initiatives but solar companies are likely to guide down for the next couple of weeks impacting near-term stock price.

The Skew:  Spending money on solar projects during a potentially catastrophic economic crisis seems like a dubious use of taxpayer funds.  So many of our taxpayer dollars are going towards investments with significant losses expected up front.  Consumption is dropping significantly which should in turn reduce the noxious cloud of industry.  The house is on fire, I wonder if we shouldn’t make sure we put it out before we start rewiring.

 

Dell (DELL) is offering 0% financing to small and medium businesses, according to the WSJ.  Customers will be able to lease equipment for 3 years and optionally buy it for $1 at the end of the lease.  Dell was previously offering 0% financing on certain equipment for large businesses.

The Skew:  Hewlett Packard has been aggressively pushing at Dell’s market share and suggested they will continue to aggressively offer financing to customers during the downturn.  Dell’s response is likely a symptom of HP’s inroads in the corporate market at Dell’s expense.

Earnings Estimate Cheat Sheet – Week of February 9, 2009

Estimated Reporting Date	Symbol	Revenue Estimate Current Q	Operating Profit Estimate Current Q	EPS Estimate Current Q	EBITDA Estimate Current Q	Revenue Estimate Next Q	Sequential Revenue Growth Estimate, Percent	Operating Profit Estimate Next Q	EPS Estimate Next Q	EBITDA Estimate Next Q	Revenue Estimate Full Year	Operating Profit Estimate Full Year	EPS Estimate Full Year	EBITDA Estimate Full Year	Revenue Estimate Next Year	Operating Profit Estimate Next Year	EPS Estimate Next Year	EBITDA Estimate Next Year
02/09/2009	ATMI	51.9	(8.1)	(0.17)	(2.6)	54.1	4.30%	(5.9)	(0.13)	(0.7)	233.2	(17.1)	(0.31)	3.8	309.4	23.2	0.59	49.3
02/09/2009	BRKS	82.9	(15.2)	(0.22)	--	72.5	-12.47%	(17.0)	(0.24)	--	328.4	(51.8)	(0.75)	(15.5)	462.5	(7.0)	(0.14)	28.3
02/09/2009	DIOD	90.9	4.0	0.05	16.0	78.6	-13.53%	1.4	(0.03)	17.5	436.6	54.1	1.01	94.3	332.8	16.1	0.05	50.6
02/09/2009	EMKR	59.7	(6.1)	(0.08)	--	61.7	3.34%	(5.1)	(0.06)	--	260.4	(17.5)	(0.21)	--	337.3	(2.2)	0.00	--
02/09/2009	ESLR	60.8	(10.1)	(0.05)	(2.8)	84.5	39.08%	(1.9)	0.00	4.7	369.4	6.8	0.13	54.0	550.2	69.4	0.43	119.3
02/09/2009	IVAC	19.3	(6.8)	(0.23)	(0.1)	25.0	30.04%	(3.5)	(0.16)	4.5	120.3	(14.7)	(0.35)	(5.8)	140.5	(0.6)	0.09	(3.6)
02/09/2009	NSIT	1,257.3	25.1	0.27	36.8	1,058.6	-15.80%	12.2	0.10	22.3	4,931.7	110.0	1.28	151.6	4,645.7	94.5	1.05	132.6
02/09/2009	RVBD	84.8	10.6	0.10	11.8	90.2	6.32%	12.7	0.12	14.1	372.6	58.0	0.55	69.5	429.1	78.5	0.74	79.6
02/09/2009	SIMG	49.5	(1.3)	(0.02)	0.9	49.6	0.11%	(1.0)	(0.01)	0.4	206.1	(1.0)	0.02	4.3	199.1	2.1	0.06	11.3
02/09/2009	SPSN	503.7	(105.2)	(0.81)	52.5	460.0	-8.69%	(109.3)	(0.82)	41.0	2,317.6	(367.5)	(3.01)	--	1,955.9	(343.0)	(2.61)	259.6
02/09/2009	TASR	23.8	1.4	0.01	2.4	19.6	-17.66%	(1.0)	(0.01)	(0.3)	90.1	0.9	0.02	--	91.3	4.7	0.05	7.0
02/09/2009	VECO	109.8	--	0.08	7.1	88.5	-19.35%	--	(0.07)	4.7	442.2	--	0.49	29.3	361.5	--	(0.17)	10.7
02/10/2009	AMAT	1,348.7	5.7	(0.00)	76.6	1,134.4	-15.89%	(43.4)	(0.04)	21.6	5,058.6	(45.8)	(0.04)	285.0	6,461.6	829.6	0.43	1,097.4
02/10/2009	ARW	4,128.2	130.0	0.59	145.2	3,646.4	-11.67%	98.7	0.45	121.0	16,799.5	609.3	2.91	680.8	14,991.1	438.2	2.04	539.6
02/10/2009	CRAY	136.0	17.0	0.51	--	68.0	-50.01%	1.4	0.04	--	263.5	5.5	0.20	--	252.8	(11.4)	(0.31)	--
02/10/2009	CSC	4,148.3	306.9	1.02	613.2	4,364.0	5.20%	401.8	1.52	729.1	17,188.4	1,208.7	4.05	2,451.5	17,508.4	1,258.5	4.27	2,557.6
02/10/2009	KONA	19.5	(1.5)	(0.22)	0.4	21.9	12.76%	(1.2)	(0.18)	0.8	77.9	(3.6)	(0.51)	3.5	95.4	(2.9)	(0.32)	5.9
02/10/2009	NVDA	489.4	(72.6)	(0.09)	15.4	538.2	9.96%	(64.7)	(0.07)	24.8	3,449.2	361.9	0.62	546.8	2,435.9	(131.2)	(0.01)	381.9
02/10/2009	SWIR	138.7	9.1	0.23	11.7	132.7	-4.35%	7.5	0.19	13.6	573.2	44.7	1.12	56.8	557.7	31.2	0.86	48.9
02/10/2009	SYNT	104.5	23.4	0.47	28.0	106.7	2.09%	22.6	0.47	28.5	410.3	91.4	1.92	105.9	447.3	97.4	1.97	113.9
02/10/2009	UMC	569.4	(45.9)	(0.02)	--	465.3	-18.29%	(110.2)	(0.04)	--	2,949.1	66.7	(0.01)	--	2,003.3	(348.3)	(0.12)	--
02/10/2009	VSH	574.3	(7.3)	0.00	49.7	513.3	-10.63%	(15.5)	(0.08)	44.6	2,821.1	151.4	0.62	374.0	2,134.9	(23.8)	0.10	201.8
02/11/2009	ARRS	290.6	45.3	0.25	52.0	280.5	-3.47%	35.5	0.19	43.7	1,142.7	148.7	0.76	164.0	1,180.5	156.8	0.81	188.1
02/11/2009	AUDC	40.8	2.8	0.06	--	39.3	-3.76%	1.7	0.03	--	176.8	14.7	0.33	--	168.7	10.5	0.23	--
02/11/2009	BIDU	132.5	48.1	1.34	60.8	120.0	-9.39%	38.1	1.01	49.8	456.0	162.3	4.49	210.5	614.6	217.7	5.81	276.5
02/11/2009	CYMI	99.6	5.1	0.15	16.0	70.0	-29.67%	(6.3)	(0.21)	--	458.9	62.5	1.23	90.7	311.8	(3.0)	(0.08)	16.1
02/11/2009	EQIX	190.5	22.3	0.25	76.6	199.6	4.75%	23.6	0.28	79.4	704.5	71.3	0.66	271.2	869.8	109.9	1.47	351.3
02/11/2009	FORR	67.1	12.2	0.37	--	60.9	-9.25%	8.6	0.28	--	245.0	41.4	1.31	--	270.2	45.9	1.44	--
02/11/2009	GSIC	381.1	42.5	0.49	61.3	207.7	-45.49%	(16.5)	(0.28)	0.9	957.3	(8.7)	(0.31)	59.3	1,021.5	6.6	(0.06)	77.4
02/11/2009	INSP	36.4	(3.0)	(0.05)	--	36.8	0.92%	(0.6)	0.03	--	156.4	3.8	(0.32)	--	153.0	(2.6)	0.19	--
02/11/2009	LVLT	1,077.3	9.3	(0.08)	249.9	1,071.8	-0.51%	13.5	(0.08)	228.9	4,318.2	(37.6)	(0.36)	927.1	4,295.9	62.1	(0.28)	989.2
02/11/2009	NTAP	912.4	102.7	0.28	--	931.6	2.11%	115.8	0.31	--	3,617.5	402.9	1.10	572.2	3,732.7	456.5	1.26	614.1
02/11/2009	RVSN	21.0	(2.4)	(0.07)	(2.2)	21.8	3.83%	(1.4)	(0.02)	(1.4)	89.8	(3.5)	(0.03)	(1.2)	102.9	(1.0)	0.10	4.1
02/11/2009	SCOR	32.5	2.4	0.04	5.6	33.5	2.83%	4.6	0.08	7.1	118.3	10.8	0.20	--	143.5	20.5	0.37	32.4
02/11/2009	TKLC	120.5	19.8	0.24	--	106.7	-11.41%	15.7	0.17	--	462.1	84.3	0.90	93.1	467.5	77.2	0.89	80.5
02/11/2009	TOMO	64.8	(2.1)	(0.02)	(12.1)	43.3	-33.13%	(9.8)	(0.10)	--	183.1	(48.6)	(0.54)	(42.0)	201.0	(29.6)	(0.28)	(27.9)
02/11/2009	TQNT	142.5	10.5	0.06	21.6	119.3	-16.26%	2.6	0.01	15.1	567.0	41.3	0.28	79.8	553.8	41.6	0.19	87.3
02/12/2009	AMKR	545.3	21.8	0.01	73.3	488.5	-10.41%	(10.3)	(0.19)	5.5	2,655.2	316.8	1.06	598.7	2,097.7	28.2	(0.47)	327.7
02/12/2009	BBND	48.9	4.0	0.06	5.7	46.6	-4.75%	2.5	0.05	6.4	180.0	12.2	0.25	21.8	203.0	16.0	0.27	29.7
02/12/2009	KNOT	25.0	1.0	0.03	3.0	24.2	-3.27%	0.2	0.01	--	104.2	6.4	0.19	15.0	107.2	9.5	0.22	19.0
02/12/2009	NTGR	157.2	9.0	0.07	--	154.1	-1.96%	11.4	0.19	--	739.3	71.2	1.06	77.0	648.6	49.2	0.90	83.0
02/12/2009	RACK	54.9	(6.5)	(0.13)	--	52.1	-5.15%	(6.4)	(0.10)	--	264.1	(10.8)	(0.17)	--	240.6	(12.3)	(0.20)	--
02/12/2009	RNWK	153.8	(22.6)	(0.03)	(11.7)	151.0	-1.80%	(16.2)	(0.03)	1.4	605.9	(73.8)	(0.05)	(6.2)	624.4	(57.3)	(0.09)	4.0
02/12/2009	SIRF	50.8	(11.6)	(0.22)	--	41.5	-18.26%	(14.2)	(0.19)	--	236.2	(38.6)	(0.64)	(336.7)	195.9	(39.0)	(0.49)	--
02/12/2009	STMP	21.6	2.3	0.16	2.9	20.8	-3.63%	1.5	0.18	2.7	84.2	9.3	0.61	10.7	88.0	7.1	0.67	11.2
02/12/2009	VCLK	142.5	22.1	0.15	31.8	132.7	-6.92%	19.6	0.13	27.8	635.2	73.1	0.54	136.1	554.2	86.3	0.58	122.2
02/13/2009	CTSH	745.3	132.9	0.38	154.5	752.0	0.91%	133.4	0.38	154.2	2,808.5	507.5	1.44	582.0	3,166.4	562.1	1.60	639.5
02/13/2009	SSTI	43.0	--	(0.07)	--	51.2	19.07%	--	(0.06)	--	214.8	--	(0.18)	--	--	--	--	--