Needham & Company Lowers Estimates on Applied Materials (AMAT); SEMICON Tone Cautious

Needham & Company maintains a 'Hold' on Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT).

Analyst, Y. Edwin Mok, said, "The commentaries were decidedly mixed at this year’s SEMICON West. Ahead of its Analyst Meeting, AMAT lowered its full year guidance to below prior ranges. Coupled with TEL’s lowering JunQ order and Mattson's (Nasdaq: MTSN) (Hold) pre-announcement, it appears the industry is heading into another downturn. On the other hand, our meetings with a handful of companies, including KLA-Tencor (Nasdaq: KLAC) (N/R), Ultratech (Nasdaq: UTEK) (N/R) and Nova Measuring (Nasdaq: NVMI) (Buy) paint a more encouraging picture. We believe AMAT’s view into C2H12 is overly cautious, as we believe not all of the foundries are pushing out orders for all equipment companies. In aggregate, we believe industry order/revenue outlook for C3Q12 is expected to decline double-digit-%, but business condition in C2H12 will not be as challenging as last year’s."

FY12 EPS estimate lowered from $0.93 to $0.80 and FY13 from $1.14 to $0.96.

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Applied Materials click here. For more ratings news on Applied Materials click here.

Shares of Applied Materials closed at $10.71 yesterday.

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