CITIGROUP DOWNGRADES INTERSIL, FAIRCHILD SEMI, RF MICRO
Citigroup analyst Craig Ellis says he's been increasingly negative on the specialty semiconductor group since mid-June.
Ellis notes, while he cut virtually all estimates and price targets in the group on Sept. 7, in the past three weeks, snowballing signs of product sales softness (PC, handset, consumer), freshly eroding macro indicators (U.S. and Euro September ISM) and dour field checks portend even greater near-term downside and shallower mid-2009 recovery than his estimates reflect.
He sees the need to cut calendar year 2008-2010 estimates further for most companies. He downgrades Intersil (ISIL) to hold from buy; Fairchild Semiconductor (FCS) and RF Micro Devices (RFMD) to sell from hold.
JP MORGAN KEEPS NEUTRAL ON NETFLIX
JP Morgan analyst Barton Crockett notes Netflix (NFLX) said the end-of-third quarter subscribers of 8.672 million were slightly below the low end of 8.675-8.875 million guidance; NFLX lowered 9.1-9.7 million end-of-fourth quarter subscriber guidance to 8.95-9.25 million.
Crockett sees this as supportive of his cautious stance on NFLX shares, which he believes are discounting expectation of continued strength in subscriber growth.
He believes subscriber growth trends would be pressured toward end of calendar year 2008 as the company starts comping against exceptional strength in year-ago period, when Blockbuster (BBI) stopped promoting its competing Total Access offering.