Intel
For the fourth quarter, Intel reported the best gross margins the company has ever seen and the company's bottom line was up nearly 10 times from its 2008 level. Not too shabby. The blowout results inspired my fellow Fool Anders Bylund to say that investors had better be looking at chip stocks, while Fool Tim Beyers suggested that it could be a sign of a broader tech rally.
On the Motley Fool CAPS community, members have given Intel a fairly strong vote of confidence. More than 6,500 outperform ratings have poured in, against just 559 underperforms, giving the stock a four-star rating out of a possible five.
And while a chip-stock or broader tech rally could boost Intel further, some CAPS members have already done well by riding the top dog in semiconductors. Totasz, for example, nabbed 34 points from a mid-2006 outperform call on the stock.
Totasz is one of CAPS' All-Stars -- players with a rating of 80 or greater -- and has managed a stock-picking accuracy of 55% while racking up more than 950 points. Intel isn't this player's only great call. Here's a look at a few other prescient picks:
Company |
Date Picked |
Date Ended |
Call |
Points |
CAPS Rating
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Netflix |
6/20/07 |
2/27/08 |
Outperform |
73 |
*** |
Intuitive Surgical |
10/31/08 |
Still Open |
Outperform |
59 |
**** |
Buffalo Wild Wings |
10/7/07 |
9/25/08 |
Outperform |
51 |
*** |
Data from CAPS.
So what has this investor been looking at more recently? Here are a few of Totasz's most recent calls on CAPS:
Company |
Date Picked |
Call |
CAPS Rating
|
---|---|---|---|
NVIDIA |
1/13/10 |
Outperform |
**** |
FormFactor |
1/13/10 |
Outperform |
***** |
Neutral Tandem |
10/28/09 |
Outperform |
**** |
Data from CAPS.
While not all of these picks may pan out, they could be a good place to start further research. I decided to take a closer look at FormFactor.
A tech laggard?
For all the talk about the positive signs that Intel provided for the chip industry and tech more broadly, it doesn't look like the rising tides have been lifting FormFactor's boat.
FormFactor makes wafer probe cards -- devices that semiconductor manufacturers use to test their chips. That means FormFactor lives and dies with the ups and downs of the semiconductor world.
Underscoring the larger industry's struggles, FormFactor recently cut its fourth-quarter forecast. It also gave a softer-than-expected outlook for the first quarter. As it is, analysts expect that the company will report a loss for 2010.
But could Intel's results still be a good sign for FormFactor? After all, Intel has historically been one of the company's largest customers. The bigger question mark may come from Elpida Memory, a heavily indebted Japanese memory maker that's had an ongoing struggle with profitability. For the first nine months of 2009, Elpida accounted for 55% of FormFactor's sales.
In the end, though, the boom-and-bust cycle of the semiconductor industry could play right into the hands of FormFactor investors if chipmakers start investing more. And with more than 1,100 CAPS members currently rating the company's stock an outperformer, this may be exactly what they're expecting.
CAPS All-Star mcollin was thinking along these lines back in December, when giving the stock a thumbs-up:
Investment in technology and Capital Expenditures in general has been way down in 2008 and 2009, so companies will spend heavily on this when the economy does turn around. Long-term growth potential is there.
Here's the important question: What's your take on the company? Is a turnaround in the wafer cards for FormFactor? Get in the action by clicking over to CAPS. Our absolutely free investing community already has more than 145,000 stock pickers chipping in to find the best stocks out there.
Do the trials of FormFactor inspire you to get more defensive? If so, my fellow Fool Todd Wenning has the prescription for your portfolio.