PMC-Sierra Fuels Chips Further
K.C. Swanson
06/04/04 - 11:18 AM EDT
Chip stocks rallied Friday amid a broad-based
advance based on a strengthening job market and Thursday's encouraging news from
semiconductor giant
Intel. Adding
to the bullish buzz,
PMC-Sierra offered upbeat guidance Friday morning.
Communications-chip maker PMC-Sierra said it
expects revenue to meet or exceed the high end of its
previously issued sales range, for $83 million to $85
million. The initial guidance implied sequential
growth of 8% to 10% for the quarter ending June 27.
Analysts were expecting 7 cents earnings on
revenue of $84.2 million for the company's June
quarter, according to Thomson First Call.
In recent trading, shares of PMC were up 30 cents, or 2.2%, to $13.73, while the benchmark Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index was recently up 2.1% to 473.54.
Other communications chipmakers joined in the
party, with
Vitesse recently up 30
cents, or 6%, to $5.31 and
Applied Micro
Circuits up 21 cents or 4.2%
to $5.25.
Broadcom was higher by 94
cents, or 2.3%, to $42.06.
Separately,
Silicon Storage , a developer and manufacturer of flash memory technology, was recently up 59 cents, or 5%, to $12.44 ahead of its midquarter update, which was scheduled to begin at 11:15 a.m. EDT.
Meanwhile, Intel rose 89 cents, or 3.3%, to $28.30
as investors warmly responded to Thursday's
midquarter update, in which the
company tilted sales guidance to
the high end of the range.
So far in June, a few other chipmakers have
issued mildly positive comments, with
Xilinx lifting its gross
margin guidance to the high end of the range (while
reiterating its previous quarterly sales outlook) and
Altera
predicting sales growth at the high end
of guidance.
Fairchild Semiconductor endorsed
its previous sales forecast but issued a cautionary
note about volatile ordering patterns.
