Thursday, February 22, 2018

Advanced Energy Industries Continues To Reap The Benefits Of The Semi Cycle

Every once in a while, you see things that make you double-check and triple-check what you're looking at, and Advanced Energy Industries ("AEIS") (AEIS) is a case in point. This manufacturer of key components used in semiconductor manufacturing and a variety of other specialized manufacturing processes has continued to rack up excellent, better-than-expected results. And the shares are … down about 10% from when I last wrote about the company?

Over that same period, a grab-bag of other companies with exposures to many of the same primary markets (including Applied Materials (AMAT), MKS Instruments (MKSI), and Orbotech (ORBK)) are up anywhere from 30% to 60%. Although I thought AEIS was priced pretty richly back at the time of that last update, I'm a little surprised the strong reported financial performance hasn't kept the stock price stronger.

That's not to say that I think AEIS is cheap today. I think there's a "hey, it's not quite as expensive as some other ideas in the space" relative valuation argument, but the expectations that seem factored into the price today are still pretty healthy. That said, if AEIS can continue to leverage the ongoing investments in leading-edge semiconductor capacity and post strong numbers, it won't surprise me if the sell-side starts making "buy this laggard" calls.

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Advanced Energy Industries Continues To Reap The Benefits Of The Semi Cycle

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