Manoj Nadkarni: Dipping Into Chip Stocks  Interview by Forbes website Newsletters Editor John Dobosz (January 2003).

You have to fathom a company's growth qualitatively. Look at their product lines. Look at their competition ... You have to look at each case separately in terms of growth, valuation and financial strength and see how they compare to their peers.
 

Hot Plays in the Chip Rebound  ChipInvestor's investment chat with BusinessWeek Online Editor Jack Dierdorff and Producer Karyn McCormack (October 2003).

He (ChipInvestor president) sees some interesting investment possibilities among makers of chips and chip equipment, especially "small or midsize companies that have shown the ability to have good margins at a relatively low revenue base," as he puts it.
 

Why AMD Still Doesn't Scare Intel   Business 2.0 magazine (September 2005 issue, published by a subsidiary of Time Inc.) and CNN Money website article by Senior Writer Om Malik.

It (AMD) builds some of the world's most sophisticated chips, but it's not yet turning a consistent profit.... "At the current demand level, AMD can not make chips cheap enough to raise its margins," says Manoj Nadkarni of ChipInvestor, an industry research firm.
 

Five Below-The-Radar Chip Stocks  Investment analysis by ChipInvestor publisher Manoj Nadkarni, presented at Forbes website (December 2004).

Many chip companies have had high inventories and not enough end demand. Communications and consumer-centric companies are probably the worst affected. It is likely that chip stocks will pull back from gains made last month as street expectations come down.
 

Intel Posts Higher Profit, Sales   Washington Post Business section story by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove (October 13, 2004)

AMD has "had some momentum with their 64-bit processor, and Intel has been a step behind in that regard," said Manoj M. Nadkarni, president of ChipInvestor.

Chip Stocks Line Up Behind Intel   An article by ChipInvestor publisher at Forbes.com (June 2004).

If you invest in chip stocks other than Intel, you should still pay attention to Intel's business... It will be hard for the semiconductor stock index SOX to defy Intel's momentum-- positive or negative.
 

Three Earnings Jumps Make Tech Sector Smile   Washington Post Business section lead story by Staff Writers Mike Musgrove and Leslie Walker (January 15, 2004).

"In a way, Intel has led the chip industry out of a downturn," said Manoj M. Nadkarni, founder of investment site ChipInvestor.com. "The Centrino launch brought awareness to WiFi even if you didn't buy Intel products."
 

Handicapping Tech Dividends  Forbes website article by Newsletters Editor John Dobosz. (September 2003).

In Seattle, Manoj Nadkarni, a former chip industry executive who publishes the monthly ChipInvestor, points out that the cyclicality of the chip business puts a premium on cash--both for research and development during the downturns and expansions in the upswings.

Logical Bets for the Chip Market   ChipInvestor editor's Q&A session with BusinessWeek Online Producer Karyn McCormack (February 2003).

Q: What types of semiconductors show the most promise? And which companies will benefit the most?
A: Probably the strongest segment is the consumer sector. Products like digital cameras, third-generation cell phones, and DVD players are driving growth. The PC sector, we think, is stable, with growth being stagnant in the U.S. and in Western Europe, while there's a strong increase in China and other parts of Asia. The communications segment in the recent past has been the weakest, but we're probably at a bottom there. So how a particular company is doing depends on its exposure to these different markets and its competitive position.
 

Intel Sales rise 10%, but Outlook still Cautious  Washington Post article about Intel's fourth quarter, by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove (January 15, 2003)

"Intel has been delivering very well on its core product line," said Manoj Nadkarni, an analyst at ChipInvestor.com. Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc. "has had a few miscues, such as delaying the release of new chips," Nadkarni said. "We thought that would indirectly help Intel.
 

Can value investors profit from battered chip stocks?  Bloomberg Personal Finance article by Executive Markets Editor Christopher Graja (November 2002 issue).

"Even if near-term growth is not there, a company with a strong balance sheet can survive a long drought," Nadkarni (ChipInvestor founder) says. "The mantra here is to think of buying shares as though you are buying a business," he adds. "And a strong balance sheet and the ability to generate cash make a strong business."

Chipmakers still a risky purchase  Bloomberg column in Taipei Times, Taiwan's leading English language newspaper. (February 4, 2003)

"The consumer segment is what's driving growth," Manoj Nadkarni, editor of newsletter ChipInvestor.com wrote in a letter to subscribers. "Cell phones are getting fancier -- you have color screens and camera phones -- all of which require more memory."
 

10 Questions With ChipInvestor.com's Manoj Nadkarni   Our outlook for the chip and equipment companies, by TheStreet.com Staff Reporter K.C. Swanson. (August 2002).

What do you make of [Wall Street] analysts' revised expectations lately?

We have a different approach to looking at the [semiconductor] equipment industry. Fundamentally, we think that the way the Street analysts analyze companies -- like predicting revenues and earnings a year in advance -- works well for companies like Procter & Gamble, stable companies with stable earnings.

But the equipment industry is very cyclical. Applied Materials has been through three or four cycles over the last 10 years, so the cycles are -- in our mind -- normal. The CEOs themselves cannot predict reliably what their revenues and earnings will be say six months or further out. So if they cannot do that, how can somebody else do it?
 

Tech Recovery: Chip Shot Or Long Drive?  Forbes.com feature on viewpoints from investment newsletters, by Associate Editor John Dobosz (June 2002).

As Intel and Advanced Micro Devices fight each other for market share of microprocessors in PCs, Nadkarni sees more promise in companies with better profit margins operating in niche areas like programmable logic devices (PLDs) and analog circuits.
 

Betting On Your Phone's Innards  Forbes web site article by Andrew Gillies (June 2002).

"The growth in 2.5G and 3G cell phone business will be a driver for many chip companies," says Manoj Nadkarni, founder and principal analyst for ChipInvestor.com, an online newsletter devoted to the semiconductor business. As with all investing in microchip stocks, Nadkarni advises investors to stay mindful of each company's specific expertise, as well as its market share within that particular segment.
 

Placing Your Bet on Chips  ChipInvestor founder was a guest at Q&A session hosted by BusinessWeek Online's Jack Dierdorff, the retired Managing Editor of BusinessWeek magazine, and Karyn McCormack, BW Producer (May 2002).

The semi-equipment industry is seeing recovery. The order rates bottomed out in the December quarter, and all major companies are showing sequential improvement. This is due to three factors. First, chip makers are adopting advanced 0.13-micron processes. Second, there is increasing use of copper for metal wiring and use of new insulating materials. And then the third factor is migration to 300-millimeter wafers.
 

Intel Lowers Revenue Forecast for Quarter Washington Post story on Intel's mid quarter update, by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove (June 7, 2002).

Intel also blamed the mix of products it is shipping this quarter, selling more of its low-priced Celeron processors and fewer of its Pentium 4 chips than it had anticipated. ChipInvestor analyst Manoj Nadkarni said this could be one reason that the company's margins have declined -- to approximately 49 percent from 53 percent.
 

A Relative Recovery for Chip Stocks  Our investing Q&A session at BusinessWeek Online, with Contributing Editor Jack Dierdorff (January 2002).

Q: Are your recommendations intended for long-term investors? What's the time frame?
A: Our investing approach works well for long-term investors. For us, buying a stock is like buying a business. So the philosophy is to seek companies with good growth potential at fair, or attractive, valuations and with sound financials.
 

Chip Shot: Picking semiconductor stocks requires expertise. Here's an expert.   Bloomberg Personal Finance article on ChipInvestor investing philosophy by Executive Markets Editor Christopher Graja  (November 2001 issue).

Nadkarni's impressive record is partly attributable to his background: He has a master's in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, before becoming an analyst, worked for Advanced Micro Devices, National Semiconductor, and Panasonic. But even nonengineers could improve their chip-stock-picking by following these five tips he offers.

Can XP Save the Economy? Fortune Magazine analysis by Senior Editor David Kirkpatrick (November 12, 2001 issue).

Bill Gates says that to judge the benefits of XP, you have to think of companies other than the usual suspects like HP and Compaq. "Only something like XP will get our industry back to setting records," he  says.  .... And in the long run XP should help chipmakers like Intel, AMD, Micron, and Samsung, which are in dire need of good news. Says Manoj Nadkarni, president of ChipInvestor.com: "Every time Microsoft comes out with a new operating system, it requires more system resources, including faster processors and more memory." Just don't hold your breath. Intel CEO Craig Barrett hesitates when asked when the new software will help his company. "Compared to what?" he asks. "This is so wrapped up in the overall economy it's hard to predict."

Faster Chips Aren't Better, AMD Insists  Washington Post article by by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove (November 23, 2001).

Analysts tend to approve of AMD's point (rating system). "It's a marketing ploy, but it's a good one," said Manoj Nadkarni, founder and president of the processor industry investment Web site ChipInvestor.com. "Megahertz alone is not a complete measure of a processor's performance."

Watch These Stocks  Bloomberg Personal Finance cover story on 20 promising technology companies, by Senior Writer Jim Picerno and Markets Writer Bing Xiao (October 2001 issue).

More than ever, tech investing requires solid research into individual companies.  Manoj Nadkarni, principal analyst at ChipInvestor.com, an independent research company, warns that not just growth but "quality of growth" is important, determined by a firm's position and relative strength, among other factors.

Beware This Stock Market Favorite - BusinessWeek magazine analysis of NVIDIA by Senior Writer Robert Barker (May 21, 2001 issue).

"It's (NVIDIA) the king of graphics" chips, says Manoj Nadkarni, principal analyst at ChipInvestor.com, a site that tracks chip companies. "They have practically driven the competitors out of business."

Chips Ahoy!  Bloomberg Personal Finance magazine article on the semiconductor and equipment sectors by Contributing Writer John Witty, Executive Markets Editor Chris Graja and Senior Markets Editor Bill Hester (September 2001 issue).

The biggest beneficiaries (of the next upturn) could be the equipment makers. Their products are in high demand when chip companies start to build new plants or switch to smaller, more powerful processors that require equipment upgrades, notes ChipInvestor.com president Manoj Nadkarni.
 

Taiwan Semiconductor: Filling the Needs of the Absolutely Fabless - BusinessWeek Online article by Staff Writer Sam Jaffe (June 18, 2001).

"They have perfected the art of making chips to such an extreme that almost no one else can do it as quickly and as error-free as they can," says Manoj Nadkarni, principal analyst of ChipInvestor.com.

Intel Profit Plummets 94% Amid Price War - The Washington Post story on Intel, by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove (July 18, 2001).

"Historically, Intel or AMD charged $600 or $700 for high-end processors," said Manoj Nadkarni, founder of ChipInvestor.com, an online site that follows the industry. "For the first time, in April, Intel dropped the price of the Pentium 4 to $352," he said. "That's the lowest price [for a high-end processor] in almost 10 years."
 

It's Too Early to Forget About Rambus - BusinessWeek Online feature story (May, 2001) by Staff Writer Sam Jaffe.

"There is going to be market segmentation, and it will be very hard for one (memory) standard to completely dominate another," says ChipInvestor.com's Nadkarni.

The Long And Short Of Chip Speeds - An article by Senior Editor Paul McDougall in InformationWeek , a technology magazine (June 18, 2001 issue). 

Despite the potential, experts caution that commercializing the new technologies could take longer than either vendor predicts. Says Manoj Nadkarni, founder and principal analyst at ChipInvestor.com, "Whenever you're working with a new process, unanticipated problems are inevitable."

Intel, in Sales Slump, Will Cut 5,000 Jobs   The Washington Post story on Intel, by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove (March 9, 2001).

But Nadkarni at ChipInvestor.com said Intel's long-range prospects still depend on its ability to roll out new products..."In spite of all this, the biggest thing happening at Intel is the Pentium 4 launch, bringing Pentium 4 into the mainstream," he said.

How to Ride This Chip-Stock Cycle  ChipInvestor founder was a guest at BusinessWeek Online Investment Chat hosted by BW editors Jack Dierdorff and Amey Stone (March 2001).  This is our third Q&A session at BusinessWeek.

With semiconductor stocks at a 52-week low, the way up for chip companies is to do a better job of demonstrating new uses for their products. That's the advice of Manoj Nadkarni, founder and editor of ChipInvestor.com... Despite the current slowdown, he points out that the chip industry's dramatic growth has not been in a straight line.

Small Is Indeed Beautiful - An article by ChipInvestor's Manoj Nadkarni in Electronic News, a weekly magazine on the electronics industry (January 1, 2001 issue).

Sometimes, the small players have similar, or in a few cases, better growth prospects than large companies such as Texas Instruments Inc. or Applied Materials Inc. In addition, they have better valuations as measured in terms of price/sales, price/book, price/cash or price/earnings.

Intel Trims Revenue Forecast  The Washington Post  Dec. 8, 2000 story by Staff Writer Mike Musgrove.

"What may compound the problem is that Intel doesn't have a Pentium III chip above 1 gigahertz," Nadkarni said. "The Pentium III line is their mainstay, it's their bread and butter....  so far the release of Pentium 4 has been flawless."

BusinessWeek Online Interview    BusinessWeek - AOL Investment Chat hosted by Contributing Editor Jack Dierdorff (October 2000).

There are different trends happening in the industry. One is migration toward more advanced geometries. Second, companies (are) benefiting from Internet infrastructure growth. And then, within equipment companies we're seeing some trends toward more automation.
 

Hello, Mr. Chips   - Online Investor article on ChipInvestor (July-August 2000 issue) by Managing Editor Terry Stanton.

In scouring the industry for companies that will soar, Nadkarni, an engineer by training, applies his knowledge of chip design and manufacturing along with traditional measures of financial analysis.

Should Transmeta have Intel Shaking in Its Chips?   BusinessWeek Online feature story (August 2000) by Staff Writer Sam Jaffe.

"The Celeron is more of a rear-guard action against competitors taking away market share on the lower end of the spectrum," says Manoj Nadkarni, an independent analyst and editor of ChipInvestor.com. "Intel makes a much higher margin on its mobile Pentium IIIs [a high-end chip for laptops] than on Celerons. Even if Transmeta gains significant market share, it still won't be a major threat to Intel" because the Pentium IIIs are so much faster than the Celerons.

Varian Rolls With Highs, Lows -  Investors Business Daily July 24, 2000 article by Steve Watkins includes ChipInvestor comments about Varian Semiconductor.

Varian: A Wider Play on the Hot Growth in Chips  BusinessWeek Online article (May 2000) by Staff Writer Sam Jaffe.

"Historically, the chip industry made chips in the batch system, but as things have gotten smaller, the need to get precise uniformity has grown," says Manoj Nadkarni, editor of Web site chipinvestor.com. "Everything else in the process has switched to single wafer production, but ion implantation is the last step to still use the batch system. Varian has solved the technological hurdles with its new line. This is the way that everybody will go."

The Suppliers Behind Chip Makers - The Washington Post April 30, 2000 article by Senior Business Columnist Fred Barbash.

Most of the companies will benefit, said Manoj Nadkarni, who publishes the Internet-based investment newsletter ChipInvestor.com. "But we think the real opportunities are in the smaller equipment companies because their growth is going to be similar but they are not as well discovered" as their larger competitors.

The New Intel - You will find a succinct reference to ChipInvestor in the BusinessWeek March 13, 2000 cover story by Senior Correspondent Andy Reinhardt.
 

All Charged Up over E-Appliance Chips   BusinessWeek Online article by Associate Editor Amey Stone (February 2000)

Moreover, "just because a company will benefit from this boom doesn't mean we like them from the standpoint of buying their stock," says Manoj Nadkarni, an independent semiconductor analyst and president of ChipInvestor.com. He currently doesn't recommend any of the same stocks as Merrill, mostly because his criteria take valuations into account.

Intel to chip equipment makers: here's more money  Forbes Online story by Senior Editor Om Malik (January 2000)

The sleeper hit of Intel's spending frenzy will be Beaverton, Ore.-based Integrated Measurement Systems (nasdaq: IMSC), says Manoj Nadkarni ... "It (machine made by IMS) tells you that a chip, say, a Celeron, which is supposed to be running at 500 MHz, is in reality working at 425 MHz. Engineers can catch the problem before the chips go into full scale production and save chip makers a lot of money," says Nadkarni.

BusinessWeek Online Interview  (November 1999) ChipInvestor founder was a guest on BusinessWeek Online/ AOL Investment Chat about semiconductor companies.

"If you are bullish on the Internet, you have to be bullish on the semiconductor industry," says Manoj Nadkarni, editor of ChipInvestor.com, an online newsletter that focuses exclusively on that industry. Nadkarni posits that more than the PC industry, the Internet, especially its infrastructure, is now the main driver of chip demand.

The Invisible Man - The October 99 issue of Worth featured a story on Applied Materials by Financial Editor Michael Peltz.  It included ChipInvestor comments about AMAT's legendary CEO Jim Morgan.

Few semiconductor analysts understand their field as well as Manoj Nadkarni ... When he holds forth on the chip industry's brightest luminaries, he knows what he's talking about.