Lam Research Corp (LRCX)

They report Wednesday. It had a great week. LAM is the answers to the semiconductor shortage by making the equipment needed to make these chips. Smart manager and great execution.

Semis are the basic building block of the modern economy. The most economically sensitive area. The group has gone through a correction. Highly doubts the rally is over. Huge shortage of chips. TER, LRCX, and AMAT all look attractive. Demand will be quite strong going forward.

The Chinese are attempting to build their own semi-conductor facility and they need to buy the equipment – this company is who they would buy from. This new demand has caused sales to sky-rocket. The question is, will this sales growth continue. He expects some increased competition in prices so these valuations are at their stretch point. He would prefer to buy at the bottom of the cycle rather than at the peak.

Lam or Micron? Semi-conductors have been a good neighbourhood to be in. LAM is much more focused on equipment that makes semis while Micron is focussed on memory chips. With the proliferation of handsets, the demand for memory has been shooting through the roof, so Micron is benefitting big. He prefers Micron, though it's more cyclical than other stocks. Given consolidation in this space, the pricing power has gotten better. It trades at 6x PE like a cyclical. Great job of growing its business.

You want to see positive money flow. If we are seeing positive money flow this is a good thing. A lot of these stocks from the no volatility zone have suddenly become volatile. This is okay. You had a higher high on this chart. At worst the stock is consolidating. If it breaks away to the upside you are away to the races.

Semiconductor equipment guys, who provide equipment for semiconductor companies to make chips. Something that is sort of interrupting the equipment market is that China is building out a semiconductor industry and are making gobs of money. The stock hit new highs and continues moving higher. Feels it is a very elevated stock. China moving into the market will cause semiconductor prices to come down longer-term, so he would stay away.

He doesn’t know this company. The stock had fairly low volatility and is moving up, and it’s now moving into a pattern of regular sell-off and that's usually healthy. He doesn’t know how much lower it could go. He would suggest that as the stock gets around 5% off of his 200-day moving average, would be when you get into the time when you can see if the stock is going to maintain an up trend. If you get to a point where the stock stops falling and starts to reverse, then it might be a good point to buy it.