Citi Maintains Hold On Applied Materials

Citi Investment Research is out with a research report on Applied Materials Inc AMAT and it has a Hold rating and a $14 price target on shares. In a note to clients, Citi Investment Research writes, "With revenue guidance (-15-30%) largely in-line w/peers and EPS guide a touch better than our preview (but way below Street), it is hard to argue the numbers themselves were unexpected. The near-term outlook is certainly cautious—and we clearly acknowledge macro concerns—but under the sheets our checks indicate some brewing optimism around CQ4 orders for both some NAND expansion in Korea and, now, some renewed hope in a foundry turnaround. On top of this, AMAT's results now fill in the full picture and we know the semi industry is buying only $21- 22B/yr of WFE at current run-rate, just $5-7B above MAINTENANCE levels, and not sustainable in our view. Put simply, we are now at the point that if orders were to go lower, the snap-back has got to be very severe." Shares of AMAT closed at $11.36 yesterday.