Intel

Great US technology giant. There is talk about Intel TV which could be coming in the future. Good valuation. Being a chip manufacturer, they have less control of their pricing.

(Market Call Minute.) Has a real headwind. PC demand is falling faster than people thought. Thinks they are scrambling to become a supplier to tablets. Doesn’t have a leadership position at this time.

This would be an entry point for a 9-15 month holding period. Company has suffered because it does not have leverage to the mobile market. We are clearly seeing a transition from desktop to the mobile and that is going to play out over a longer period of time. This company is very good at “catching up”. Still one of the best chipmakers that is out there. Have recently launched a mobile and have a new product Haswell for ultra books. Expectations are fairly low for them but looking at the company longer-term, they can overcome that and you are getting paid to be in the stock.

A report on PC sales indicated they were the worst since 1994. Technology stocks normally do very well from October through until January but then take a bit of a hiatus. Then in the middle of April, stocks like this tend to pick up again. Chart shows this is forming a nice pattern and starting to trend higher, above its 22 moving average and outperforming the S&P 500. Good opportunity.

(A Past Pick. April 5/12. Down 20.44%.) Got stopped out of this last summer.

An issue he has had with this company is that their products go into other people’s products so they don’t control the customer per se. They are looking at things where the can get more exposure with the end customer. Reasonable valuation. Well managed. Wouldn’t be his 1^st choice on the technology side.

Trading at about 11X earnings with probably a high single digit, low double-digit long-term growth rate. Thinks the overall industry is in transition. How are tablets and mobile devices going to affect total PC growth? Thinks it will perform in line with the industry in the tech sector but not much better. Would prefer others.

Like Cisco (CSCO-Q) and has to do the mature transition story. If they are able to actually penetrate the mobile phone market, it will be a long-term story. If it doesn’t, then it has to put its bets on the server market. Very good dividend. Rock solid balance sheet but there is a lot of concern around its ability to replace the PC market. This is worth waiting for to see how it turns out.

They were the leader in terms of chips in the PC world. The transformation from a PC world to a mobility world is happening faster than anyone really expected. The new leader is Qualcomm (QCOM-Q) which has the chip market for the tablet, mobile devices and smart phones. If you own, consider Qualcomm as a replacement.

Granddaddy of desk top business. Concern is that it is not leveraged enough to mobile phone market. Made a major acquisition last year and dominates server business and will take a share in the mobile market in the future. Solid and safe and good balance sheet. It is not the growth story it used to be.

Introduced a new chip, Adam, early this year. (Low keyed micro processor chips). They’ve only got 7% share, which will only make about 2% of their bottom line but the neighbourhood is changing and they are doing their best to try to come back and get into that really fast growing mobile, smart phone area. Juicy dividend of 4.25 %. Could be an interesting Buy here.

Unfortunately it gets the vast majority of its sales and earnings from the PC market, which he believes is a declining business.

All the large-cap tech names are trading at pretty attractive multiples. Now paying dividends (over 4%) which tells you they are no longer considered a typical growth company. They are such a dominant player in their space with over 80% plus share. They can’t grow when their end market, PCs, slows.

(Market Call Minute.) Has been a disappointing long-term performer. Down by a quarter in the last 3-4 months. Decent dividend yield. Rock solid balance sheet.

This one is not doing very well. Broke a major uptrend line and the 200 day moving average is at about $23. There are better stocks at this point.

CEO is retiring. Some think he did so because he thinks it will be a tough couple of years. Low debt to capitalization. 4.2% dividend, 9 times earnings, so it is a cheap stock. Hard time moving to the mobile business. That has really hurt them. Also, increased competition in the server business. It is a restructuring story and they can’t get where they are going as quickly as they thought.

Senior management is going to moving on the middle of next year, so there is still room for this one to keep trailing. Prefers another chip manufacturer.

(Market Call Minute.) Not so great news coming out of Apple (AAPL-Q) in that they are going to switch some of their chips out. Breaking into new lows so not a stock he would be purchasing.

Almost totally exposed to the PC market. Unless you get a feeling that the company is successfully diversifying in a big way or that the PC market is coming back, don’t rush into this one. If you want exposure in the semiconductor market, he would get Taiwan semiconductor (TSM-N).

(A Top Pick May 3/12. Down 23.26%.) This was a pairs trade with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD-N). Sold this in mid-July and he thinks he was flat on the trade.

All the PC industry is hurting because of the tablet market which is taking away all their sales. However, he doesn’t think the PC is going away anytime soon. Terrific dividend and a great balance sheet. Prefers Microsoft (MSFT-Q) which has a better balance sheet and also straddles the PC market, tablets, networking, video games, etc. This one has not shifted fast enough to the mobile market and that concerns him.

(Top Pick Oct 25/11, Down 8.39%) A year ago the market was lead by high tech. Now semi conductors is becoming a laggard. Intel has a big impact from the PC market. Great balance sheet and cash flow but there are better opportunities.

(Market Call Minute.) In the wrong end of the business right now and the market perceives it as being weak and having very low demand.

Has been worried about the PC sector. Tablets are literally running them down. It is not even a fair race. This company is the granddaddy of chips. Has lots of resources. They will continue to do very well in the PC market as it exists but given that it is a shrinking market he would be very careful about paying up for this company.

As a trading stock, would you buy it today or would you buy a Put a little bit out of the money and how far out of the money? Large-cap tech is performing reasonably well. Semiconductor group is quite economically sensitive because of quick inventory turnover. He does not like to buy the lagging group. This is very dependent on global growth. PCs are still a soggy market.

Usually when there is a warning from a company, it doesn’t bode very well on his ranking system so this is a company he would not want to purchase. Also, the stock is below both the 50 and 200 day moving averages.

(A Top Pick Sept 7/11. Up 20.52%.) Sold his holdings at around $24.50. He hopes people get all panicky about this stock and dump it down to around $20-$21 and he will buy it again.

When they reported they reduced guidance, mainly because of softer global demand for PCs. Stock has underperformed since then. She wouldn’t buy this right now but would wait. Inventories are very high at about 90 days compared to the norm of about 75 days. Yielding 3.69% and trading at a pretty decent multiple. Windows 8 is launching in October and maybe a catalyst for PC demand. This is on her watch list.

Tech stocks have been in the doldrums of late. This company is driven primarily by PC demand and tech spending has been weak. Gross margins are starting to come down, which is usually not a good indicator of owning the stock.

Have very little exposure to mobile semiconductors and have missed the wireless wave. The key issue over the next 12 months will be the success of Microsoft's. Windows 8 launch. If it does as well as Windows 7, this stock should continue to go up.