On Friday, Rebecca Darst said options traders are looking at chips. What reason(s) did she cite?

Here’s the video.  It seems to me like she mentions Infineon’s (IFX) guidance cut, a recent Barron’s article and TI’s (TXN - Annual Report) lukewarm share price. In other words, all of the above.

Infineon doesn’t show up on my screens and Texas Instruments ranks pretty neutrally. I personally think the semiconductor industry should do well, and own the Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM.PK) - though the latter position is a little stub spun out from the SMH when the company was delisted.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.23 billion in orders in February 2008 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.93 according to the February 2008 Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.

The three-month average of worldwide bookings in February 2008 was $1.23 billion. The bookings figure is about eight percent greater than the final January 2008 level of $1.14 billion, but 12 percent less than the $1.40 billion in orders posted in February 2007.

With semiconductor sales essentially running flat, I was able to take solace in the fact that the steeper declines in semiconductor equipment orders were a signal that excess capacity was being soaked up. In fact, semiconductor sales have now likely outstripped orders for new manufacturing equipment for each of the last 12 months.

Unfortunately it hasn’t yet helped semiconductor manufacturers. The SOX index has lost a quarter of its value over that same time period.

If semiconductor manufacturers want to get their stocks’ mojo back, the last thing they should be doing is ordering more capacity in the face of an economic slowdown.

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent owns shares of Maxim (MXIM) and the Semiconductor HOLDRS (SMH). He holds put options against the shares of LAM Research (LRCX).

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

The Semiconductor Industry Association released the January semiconductor sales report today.

Worldwide sales of semiconductors in January were $21.5 billion, a nominal increase of 0.03 percent from January 2007, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported today. Sales declined by 3.6 percent from December 2007 when the industry reported sales of $22.3 billion. SIA said the sequential decline in sales was in line with traditional seasonal patterns for the industry.

“Virtually all product lines and all geographic markets experienced slightly lower sales in January,” said SIA President George Scalise.

The good news, as I see it, is that orders for semiconductor manufacturing equipment were down 22.3% in January.  Less equipment means less capacity, and even the same amount of sales generation will soak up the excess and improve the pricing environment.

The semiconductor sales growth has exceeded semi equipment order growth since March 2007, so it is now likely to start showing up in the fundamentals. Yes, a general economic slowdown will make it harder for semi pricing to improve. But as long as the supply continues to grow at a slower rate, the semi cycle will return regardless of what happens in the business cycle.

Disclosure: William Trent is long SMH and MXIM, and has written put options against shares of LRCX.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

According to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI):

North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.12 billion in orders in January 2008 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.89 according to the January 2008 Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI. A book-to-bill of 0.89 means that $89 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.The three-month average of worldwide bookings in January 2008 was $1.12 billion. The bookings figure is about three percent less than the final December 2007 level of $1.16 billion and 22 percent less than the $1.45 billion in orders posted in January 2007.

22.3%, to be exact. To me, this is good news for semiconductor manufacturers, because the demand for chips is still growing - barely. With equipment installations going down, the oversupply that currently exists will soon be absorbed, recession or no.

Disclosure: Long SMH, MXIM; wrote put options against LRCX

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

The following is a reprint of my January 8, 2008 RealMoney column.

In other articles, I have outlined the reasons why I think the semiconductor industry is poised for strong stock performance and why I think MEMC Electronic Materials (MEMC) is the best play on the sector.

But I also realize that a bullish semiconductor outlook right now involves making a grab at that falling knife. Therefore, I thought I should also let people know which semiconductor stock looks most vulnerable to a downturn.

I think that stock is Microsemi (MSCC).

Microsemi is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of high performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits and high-reliability semiconductors. Its products manage and control or regulate power, protect against transient voltage spikes and transmit, receive and amplify signals.

Microsemi has held up fairly well, handily beating the performance of the Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) over the last year. This may be due largely to its strong end markets, which include defense, commercial aerospace, industrial/semicap, medical, mobile connectivity and notebooks, monitors and LCD televisions.

More Questions Than Answers

To me, however, the strong end markets only raise questions concerning Microsemi’s fundamental performance. For example, with such strong end markets, why did its cash from operations fall by more than half in the year ended September 30, 2007, compared with the prior year? Why is its inventory rising faster than sales, and why is its gross margin slipping?

I turned to the company’s latest 10K in hope of finding answers.

To begin with, the area is highly competitive. According to the 10K (emphasis added), “some of our current major competitors are Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., National Semiconductor Corp. (NSM), Texas Instruments, Inc. (TXN - Annual Report), Koninklijke Philips Electronics (PHG), ON Semiconductor Corp. (ONNN), Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. (FCS), Micrel Incorporated (MCRL), International Rectifier Corp. (IRF), Semtech Corp. (SMTC), Linear Technology Corp. (LLTC), Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (MXIM), Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (SWKS), Diodes, Inc. (DIOD - Annual Report), Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (VSH), O2Micro International, Ltd. (OIIM) and Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (MPWR).” Gosh, I wouldn’t want them to leave anyone out.

Yet competition is just the third risk factor among a list that runs more than 12 pages.

The company notes the decline in net income related to non-cash acquisition related charges, restructuring charges and other factors. Yet non-cash charges don’t quite explain the decline in cash flow from operating activity. Furthermore, with “non-recurring” charges being reported in each of the last three years I’m going to go out on a limb and say investors can probably expect more of them in the future.

A Questionable Acquisition

According to the 10K, the company completed a merger with PowerDsine on January 9, 2007 and subsequently renamed PowerDsine Ltd., Microsemi Corp. - Analog Mixed Signal Group, Ltd. (”AMSGL”). Later, it notes that it “provided a valuation allowance of approximately $9,534,000 as of September 30, 2007 on all of our net deferred tax assets related to AMSGL as we have determined that it was more likely than not that the deferred tax assets would not be realized.”

Deferred tax assets are realized when the company earns taxable income in future periods. I’m not a big fan of acquiring companies that will “more likely than not” fail to earn taxable income in the future. This was one of the contributors to the decline in cash flow.

Microsemi’s gross margin weakened in the latest quarter (see chart.)

Source: Zacks Research Wizard, compiled by William A. Trent

I think there is additional margin risk stemming from burgeoning inventory levels.

Source: Zacks Research Wizard, compiled by William A. Trent

Since a large percentage of costs at semiconductor companies is fixed, producing more units results in a lower cost per unit and higher profit margins. But many of the additional units Microsemi is producing are going into inventory rather than the hands of customers.

At some point, Microsemi is going to have to sell that inventory (by producing less than customers demand.) That will reverse the positive effect on future gross margins.

Valuation Too High

All this would matter less if the stock looked cheap. But on the basis of free cash flow yield, which is my favored metric, Microsemi looks more expensive than most of its peers.

Free cash flow in 2007 was less than $4 million. On an enterprise value of $1.56 billion, that amounts to a free cash flow yield of just 0.25%. The cash flow would have to grow 150-fold just to bring the yield on par with that of Treasury bonds.

Even using the company’s best cash flow on record ($36.5 million in 2006) the yield is just 2.35% - nearly a percentage point below that of Treasuries. If I thought the company could return to the 2006 cash flow level, then grow at the forecast rate, I would be willing to consider an investment.

But given the rising inventory, unprofitable acquisition and potential for further declines in gross margin, I won’t be holding my breath.

Disclosures: William Trent is long Semiconductor HOLDRS (SMH) and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM). He holds put options against shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

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William Trent currently owns put options against the shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

This article is a reprint of my January 7, 2008 RealMoney column.

I have said in other articles that I think the semiconductor industry supply and demand fundamentals argue for positive stock performance out of the group. My general belief is that the semiconductor manufacturers like Intel (INTC - Annual Report) should do better than the semiconductor equipment manufacturers like Applied Materials (AMAT - Annual Report).

Although I think investors can profit from an ETF play like the Semiconductor HOLDRS (SMH) or the ProShares Ultra Semiconductors (USD - Annual Report), I figured it was about time for me to get more specific and try to pick some stocks I think are poised to do even better than the industry as a whole.

The clear winner, in my opinion, is MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR). MEMC is a leading manufacturer of silicon wafers for semiconductor devices and solar cells. Its customers include virtually all of the major semiconductor device manufacturers in the world.

MEMC is benefiting from a shortage of wafers, which has boosted its pricing power and profitability. According to DigiTimes, insufficient supply of polysilicon has spurred the price of silicon wafers so high that solar industry players are considering using scrap wafers that have been already been buried for years.

The tight supply has caused MEMC to drain most of its inventory. Days sales in Inventory (DSI) have plummeted from nearly 70 two years ago to less than 30 in the latest quarter.

Source: Zacks Research Wizard, William A. Trent

What’s more, the short supply is allowing MEMC to enter into highly favorable long-term supply contracts, with pre-determined pricing, on a take or pay basis, customer-advanced funds in the form of a capacity reservation deposit and equity participation in the customer’s business.

On the latest conference call, management said that not only their current capacity, but their planned capacity increases were largely spoken for.

Margins dipped slightly in the September quarter due in part to an incident that caused the company to lose well over a week’s worth of polysilicon production at its Pasadena, Texas polysilicon facility. Overall, though, the tight capacity has been contributing to rapid expansion in gross profit margin for the company.

Source: Zacks Research Wizard, William A. Trent

The increasing sales and margins, of course, are causing a steady increase in earnings estimates. Over the last 90 days 2008 EPS estimates have risen from $4.06 per share to $4.19 per share. The Zacks Rank, a measure of earnings revision momentum, is 2. This places MEMC among the top 20% of companies for earnings revision performance.

Of course, even the strongest fundamentals will do investors no good if the stock is overvalued. Fortunately, I don’t think this is the case for WFR.

Over the last 12 months, MEMC generated more than $600 million in free cash flow, giving it a 3.2% free cash flow yield based on the current $18.8 billion enterprise value. This just happens to be right in line with the current yield on 5-year Treasuries.

So why buy a risky investment like MEMC when risk-free Treasuries offer the same yield? Because Treasuries don’t offer growth, and MEMC offers tons of it. The consensus 5-year growth rate is 30%, but based on its return on equity MEMC has a sustainable growth rate of nearly 55% (which happens to be its growth rate over the past five years.)

Heck, even the lowest growth estimate is 13%. I’d take that in today’s market environment.

It’s true that by some measures the stock looks overvalued. For example, it has a price/book ratio of nearly 12x – well above the semiconductor industry average of 2x. A reduction in the valuation multiple would offset some portion of that growth benefit.

Since total return must equal growth plus the change in valuation, let’s assume that over the next five years MEMC grows at the 30% consensus rate but has its price/book shrink to the industry average of 2x. No problem. The growth still overwhelms the change in valuation, and the indicated annual return is 25%.

In my opinion, no other semiconductor player even offers close to that opportunity.

Disclosure: William Trent is long Semiconductor HOLDRs (SMH) and Maxim Integrated Products (MXIM). He holds put options against the shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

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William Trent currently owns put options against the shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

The following is a reprint of my December 27, 2007 RealMoney column

Recently I expressed concern that there may be more pain ahead for semiconductor manufacturers. The concern was based on recent sales reports from the semiconductor equipment industry and from the semiconductor equipment industry.

I have noticed that semiconductor stocks tend to perform best when the growth for chips exceeds the order growth for chip equipment. This is simple supply and demand stuff - when the chip sales are growing faster than equipment sales, it indicates demand is growing faster than supply. That means tighter capacity and less pricing pressure over the coming months, which is generally good for profits and by extension the stock prices. The reverse is true when orders for equipment are growing faster than chip sales.

Based on the October data, the equipment orders declined 24.7% year/year in September but only 16% in October. My fear was that the orders were not being cut as much as they had been in recent cycles, and therefore that the up-cycle I have been expecting would be cut short.

I did, however, note some cause for cautious optimism - in particular that the semiconductor industry data are sometimes subject to large revisions. And, lo and behold, the October equipment orders were revised down sharply.

Based on the updated report, equipment orders declined 19.9% in October and 19.4% in November. These data are much more supportive of my original thesis that the next year was likely to be a good one for semiconductor stocks.

Better yet, Gartner Group expects all major segments of capital spending to decline in 2008. Worldwide semiconductor equipment spending is now expected to total $40.3 billion in 2008, a 9.9 percent decrease from 2007 spending of $44.8 billion. (Source: Fabtech).

I don’t always believe reports from the industry analysts, because they are often wrong. I like to use the supply/demand model as a gut-check, allowing me to reconcile the unknown (analyst estimates) with what is known (current leading indicators.) In this particular case, I think Gartner is going to be close to the mark.

So what is the upside for investors? I have charted the performance of the SOX index over the last five “excess demand” cycles - with each one beginning the month after semiconductor sales begin to grow at a faster rate than semiconductor equipment orders. I use a one-month delay because the Semiconductor Industry Association reports monthly sales on a one-month lag, so the chart shows the performance starting at the time the data become available.

From the start of the excess demand cycle to the first month of excess supply, semiconductor stocks did very well in three out of four instances - and the bad time was likely a by-product of the Internet bust. (That explanation is also supported by the fact that the periods of excess supply were bad times for the SOX in three out of the last four instances, with the Internet boom being the one exception.)

Sources: Semiconductor Industry Association, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, Yahoo!Finance, compiled by William A. Trent

The current period is much more “normal” than boom/bust for tech. Therefore, I think the normal outcomes are likely to prevail.

But perhaps more enticing is that so far in this cycle the SOX is down nearly 16%. Similar (though slightly worse) interim declines happened in two of the previous cycles, and in both cases were followed by rallies of more than 50% over the following six months.

In general, I favor the semiconductor makers such as Intel (INTC - Annual Report) over the equipment makers such as Applied Materials (AMAT - Annual Report) or KLA-Tencor (KLAC) , because more capex cuts will be needed to restore the supply/demand balance.

Disclosure: William Trent owns shares in the SMH and in Maxim Integrated Circuits (MXIM) and put options on LAM Research (LRCX)

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Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

I warned most of last year that building oversupply would harm pricing for semiconductors, and the latest PPI data bear that out.

Pricing is the worst it has been since late 2003, which in turn was the worst it has ever been. But I think the fundamental outlook is improving, and my updated supply and demand model shows that late 2003 was actually quite a good time to own semiconductor stocks. You can never be too sure, though, so I decided to review the recent conference calls from a broad range of semiconductor manufacturers to get their sense of market conditions.

Intel (INTC - Annual Report) is seeing a shift in where the pricing pressure is coming.

Now, as far as the pricing environment. It was a more competitive pricing environment than we thought in Q2, and we expect it to continue to be somewhat competitive which is what you’re seeing in our margin outlook for the year. We believe the best defense against the competitive price environment is better product.

If you look at what’s happening with us the last year, you’ve seen better products quarter by quarter by quarter. You’ve seen improved product differentiation, 45 nanometer coming out; the Penryn product family, as Paul talked about. So what you’re seeing is Intel’s commitment and focus to making our products better and better and better which is the best defense we have in a competitive pricing situation.

Glen Yeung - Citigroup

Andy, is the pricing pressure the same now as it has been all year? Is it getting worse or getting better?

Paul Otellini

I would say it is different, Glen. It is much more targeted now at the low end of the desktop and even a little bit of the notebook marketplace, and a year ago it was higher in the stacks in many areas.

(Excerpt from full INTC conference call transcript)

Altera (ALTR) is deciding that in some cases they just won’t take it anymore.

There are pieces of business that we do look at, that we do turn down, because we don’t think that they are profitable today or will ever be profitable pieces of business for us to entertain. As an example in Q1 we looked at two pieces of consumer business, where the pricing expectation and requirement for the customer was not something that we could support. And so, we told the customer, we were not interested in participating in the business going forward.

(Excerpt from full ALTR conference call transcript)

Texas Instruments (TXN - Annual Report) wants to avoid competition where possible.

Jim Covello - Goldman Sachs

Okay. And then maybe my final question. Just on the analog side, you guys are obviously doing a terrific job picking up share. You talked at the Analyst Meeting in very clear terms about the strategy for doing that and a lot of the share gain is kind of coming from that third bucket you described at the Analyst Meeting, the smaller customers where you have the scale and mask to you need to go after customers that maybe your competitors don’t have the same scale and mask to go after. What kind of competitive response are you expecting from the rest of the analog industry, as they try and stop you guys on your continued share gain impact? Thanks a lot.

Kevin March

Jim I guess, I would comment on that, we have already been seeing competitive response but I think the difficulty for our competitors again has to do with scale, that is we have a sales force that is such that we can just simply touch a lot more customers than any of our competitors can touch at a one point in time. We added to that the breath of our total product offering that we have and we can literally solve almost any problem that a customer may have on a particular Board that they’re may be designing, which allows them to really solve their problem fairly quickly with solutions that we have as opposed to having multiple vendors in. Those are probably two elements of the position that we enjoy today and we’ll enjoy in the future that we would expect to be quite difficult for our competitors to really be able to overcome, so we remained confident that our objectives to growing our positions in analog are really pretty solid and within our reach.

(Excerpt from full TXN conference call transcript)

All in all, it seems that management teams are seeing the competitive pressures that are reflected in the PPI, and are responding to them. Their response, I believe, will improve the industry’s fundamental balance and result in better pricing and better stock prices.

Disclosure: William Trent holds put options on the shares of Lam Research (LRCX) and has a short position in put options related to the Semiconductor HOLDRs ETF (SMH).

William Trent currently owns put options against the shares of Lam Research (LRCX).

Lest you think we were going soft, we hereby balance our earlier enthusiasm for semi stocks with our more customary caution. The five reasons to avoid semiconductor stocks right now include:

1. The fundamentals will get worse before they get better. While supply indications grew slower than demand in April, the turn followed 16 months of too much capacity being ordered. As that capacity comes on line, the inventory situation will worsen and margins will get hit more. It is not at all certain that estimates reflect this.
2. It is May. Sure, sell in May and go away is a cliche. Things often become cliches for a reason.
3. Demand? What demand?
4. Valuations are too high because investors are hoping for more premium buyouts. They will happen, but not to every name in the sector.
5. The last bear may no longer be standing.

Food for thought.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.

A reader complained yesterday that we have been too negative. While we aren’t going to go crazy and have a whole positivity day, we will take the time to outline the bull case for the industry on which we have been most negative: semiconductors.

1. The bad news is known. When we started harping about oversupply, it was the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. Like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the act of observation can alter the experiment.
2. The market is ignoring the fundamentals. Related to point 1, the market knows about the bad fundamentals and doesn’t care. Often this means that the bad news is sufficiently well known to be priced in. This is of course the weakest reason, as the market ignored the fundamentals in 2000 as well.
3. Demand may be ready to pick up. Double-digit growth from a tech distributor for the first time in a long time should not be ignored. The Vista hoopla has passed, now the nuts and bolts work may be beginning.
4. Supply and demand will soon realign. For the first time since 2005, orders for new equipment grew at a slower rate than semiconductor end demand. The longer this situation continues, the healthier it will be for future industry sales, pricing and profit margins.
5. The game has changed. Forget private equity buyers. For the first time a semiconductor management team decided it was more important to take capital out of the industry than to add more. This is a sea change in semiconductor management-think, and the strong positive reaction from investors ensures that the wave will continue to build.

There. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Stay tuned for our five reasons NOT to buy semiconductor stocks today.

Disclosure: William Trent has a long position in SMH.