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TAP TIMES -14- MARCH 2022
vaguely efficient,” Simply Wall Street con-
Stocks (from 13) tinued, “then over the long term you’d
expect a company’s share price to follow
Clearly, both companies thought this its earnings per share (EPS).
merger was a great idea, since it would
slow the market penetration of any aspir- Impressive growth
ing number one wannabees, such as Lam “It’s no surprise, then, that I like to invest
Research. in companies with EPS growth,” the ana-
lyst said. “Impressively, Applied Materials
Both boards had approved the deal has grown EPS by 30% per year, com-
When the deal concluded, Applied said, its pound, in the last three years.
shareholders would own about 68 percent
of the new company and TEL shareholders “As a general rule, we’d say that if a com-
would own the balance. Both companies’ pany can keep up that sort of growth,
boards had approved the deal. shareholders will be smiling.”
On July 7, 2014, the opening of SEMICON
West in San Francisco, the potential part- Zacks Research
ners finally unveiled the new name: En- also likes Applied.
teris.
On February 14,
Still number 1 Zacks wrote:
Then on April 27, 2015, the U.S. Dept. of “Investors are
Justice announced that the aspiring com- always looking for
bination had cancelled the merger because stocks that are
the govenment felt it would be anti-com- poised to beat at
petitive. While it was a setback, it left Ap- earnings season
plied still number one in wafer processing and Applied Mate-
tools. rials (AMAT) may
be one such com-
With Q122 earnings at $6.27 billion, up 21 pany. The firm has
percent Y/Y and a GAAP EPS of $2.00, Ap- earnings coming
plied still dominates the wafer processing up pretty soon,
tool segment. For its 2021 full year, the Retired Applied CEO, chairman and events are
James Morgan visited SEMICON
company reported a record $23.06 billion , West 2017 to sign his new book. shaping up quite
up 34% Y/Y. Morgan pulled the company from nicely for their
unprofitability to an earnings
standout. (TAP TIMES) report.”
On February 6, Simply Wall Street com-
mented, “Now, I’m not saying that the COVID-19 helping/hurting sales
(AMAT) stock is necessarily undervalued Ironically, one of the best thing that’s hap-
today; but I can’t shake an appreciation pened to Applied in the past two years
for the profitability of the business itself. may have been the Corona virus. This
mega-giant’s sales have exploded through
“In comparison, loss making companies the roof.
act like a sponge for capital, but unlike
such a sponge, they do not always pro- COVID’s impact on makers of semiconduc-
duce something when squeezed. tor processing equipment, however has
been a mixed bag. While chip demand —
“If you believe that markets are even thus tool demand — has risen,next page
