Intel cuts prices by 19%
  03/05/2001 8:43:03 PM MST Albuquerque, Nm
  By Dustin D. Brand; Owner AMO

Weak earnings causes Intel to cut prices.   Sales of microprocessors weakened for the third month in a row for January, 2001. Today, Intel announced along with half a dozen other companies in the sector of earnings warnings. In response, Intel is slashing their prices by 19% in an attempt to spur growth.

  Nonetheless, shares of most semiconductor makers rose on Monday as investors, already bracing for bad news, breathed a sigh of relief that the numbers were not worse.

  Intel, along with Cypress Semiconductor, LSI Logic, Vitesse Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor International, Xilinx, and Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates all warned of earnings shortcomings.

  Toward the end of the day of trading however investors showed their preparedness.

  Cypress shares rose 27 cents, or more than 1 percent, to $19.13, and LSI moved up 51 cents, or more than 3 percent, to $16.82, both on the New York Stock Exchange. On Nasdaq, shares of Vitesse rose $1-1/4, or more than 3 percent, $39-1/16.

  After their late-day warnings, Fairchild, Xilinx and Varian gave up some ground but not the dramatic sell-offs previously associated with profit warnings.

  In after-hours activity, Xilinx last traded at $43 off a regular session close of $43-1/4 and Varian last traded at $30 off a close of $31-1/2. Both had risen during the day.

  Fairchild, a New York Stock Exchange issue, was not active after-hours but was bid slightly lower at 5 cents below its close of $15.50. The stock also had lost a nickel in regular trading.

  Intel has great anticipation for it's first 64Bit CPU, the Itanium targeted at Web Servers and Server Farms which should be released later this year. The Pentium 4, recently released is targeted at consumers while their high-end Pentium III and XEON processors are still targeted at the Server Market because of their use in Parallel computing.