Based on the aggregated intelligence of 170,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, chip equipment maker Applied Materials
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Applied Materials' business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.
Applied Materials facts
|
Headquarters (founded) |
Santa Clara, Calif. (1967) |
|
Market Cap |
$20.83 billion |
|
Industry |
Semiconductor equipment |
|
Trailing-12-Month Revenue |
$10.39 billion |
|
Management |
Chairman/CEO Michael Splinter CFO George Davis |
|
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years) |
8.2% |
|
Cash/Debt |
$2.75 billion / $205 million |
|
Dividend Yield |
1.7% |
|
Competitors |
KLA-Tencor
Lam Research
Varian Semiconductor Equipment |
Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.
On CAPS, 95% of the 1,915 members who have rated Applied Materials believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include turkeybird and FoolishMikee.
Just last week , turkeybird summed up the Applied Materials bull case for our community: "solid fundamentals in a upward trending market environment."
Currently, Applied Materials even sports a cheapish forward P/E of 10.3. That represents a slight discount to competitors KLA-Tencor (11.5), Lam Research (10.5), and Varian Semiconductor (12.3).
CAPS member FoolishMikee expands on Applied Materials as a particularly well-managed opportunity:
AMAT is the world's largest semiconductor equipment maker and according to their 2009 annual report "We reached $1 billion in revenue and were named the number one equipment supplier to the global photovoltaics" ...
The firm's leadership is led by, and as obvious as this sounds and expected, well experienced professionals for each of their position. Michael Splinter (CEO) has an impressive track record for working previously for Intel for 20 years, and currently serves on the board of NASDAQ OMX Group, board of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).
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