Monday, February 7, 2011

Earnings Heads-up: Veeco Reports After the Close (VECO)

The stock is trading up 1.7% at $45.33.
Eric Rosenbaum at TheStreet gets this stuff as well as any journalist currently on the alt/clean/green beat.
I was just about to link to his interview with PWER's CEO when this dropped out of one of the feed-readers:
The LED end-market players already had their chance to move the needle on earnings, and Cree(CREE_) and SemiLEDs(LEDS_) dialed back investor expectations, and took big hits on recent earnings disappointments. Now it's the turn of the LED equipment makers, with Veeco Instruments(VECO_) set to report after the close on Monday.

With the cracks exposed in the immediate outlook for Cree and its competitors in the lighting market, investors and the Street will be looking for any sign of weakness from Veeco Instruments. Veeco, like its LED peers, tends to trade with volatility after earnings, yet it's a more distinct trade than the one made on the LED end market companies like Cree.

With Veeco, it's not a story about short-term pricing weakness among the general lighting market customers, or about the pace of street lamp adoption in China specifically, which took down Cree. In its core market of LED equipment sales, the Veeco trade is based on the amount of equipment buying taking place in Korea, Taiwan and China, and specifically, any slowdown in Korea and Taiwan being offset by incremental sales in China....MORE
He not only has a couple good observations but he also has the right feel for the group, you can't teach that, it comes from watching pixels (or in Jesse Livermore's day, the tape).