"If the global recession ends before 2010, bombed out semi stocks are a great bargain", wrote the Financial Times yesterday.
It's pretty awful seeing Infineon shares at under a euro, as they have been this week, and TI and NXP announcing they expect 25 per cent drops in revenues in Q408 compared to Q3.
Consensus earnings expectations for the semiconductor industry next year are expected to be 25 per cent down on 2008.
But, as everyone in the semiconductor industry knows, when the industry sinks to appalling lows, it is only in preparation for a bounce-back in a blaze of glory.
As the FT acutely observes: "The darkest hours for chipmakers have tended to be the best moment to buy their shares. That could come early next year, since inventory levels were not that high going into this downturn."
So, chaps, don't blow too much on the pre-Christmas binge, the old girl's new nightie, or the post-Christmas
Is that a note of sarcasm I detect in your posting or is that just my own cynicism?
Sarcasm, I've always been told, is the lowest form of wit and the highest form of vulgarity.
I wasn't consciously being sarcastic. I just thought the FT was showing unusual perspicacity about the level of semiconductor stocks which the financial analysts seem to have written off.