Tag Archives: ASP

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Can Micron Hold On to Its Momentum?

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By Richard Saintvilus, The Motley Fool

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Shares of memory maker Micron have been on a tear. Upon reaching $10.27 last week, the stock has essentially doubled after bottoming out at $5.16 on Oct. 24. With the stock now only percentage points away from a 52-week high, investors want assurances that Micron has enough ammo to support the recent optimism. I don’t blame them.

Micron is known for its volatility. And it certainly doesn’t help that the commodity memory industry, which has posted weak margins due to low average selling prices, or ASPs, has been shaky at best. But with names like SanDisk , Samsung and Applied Materials, there’s also been a lot of value in this sector. And Micron certainly fits in that category. So, heading into the company’s earnings results, there was a lot to prove. And Micron delivered.

Who and what is Micron today?
Unlike previous reports, Micron’s second-quarter results left very little for investors to complain about. Revenue arrived at $2.1 billion, up 3% year over year. While not exactly a strong number, when compared to the first-quarter results, it represents a 13% sequential jump. Plus it was enough to beat Street estimates of $1.92 billion.

The company’s flash memory business consists of NOR and NAND, non-volatile storage technologies that requires no power to retain data. Both work the same way, but are different in functionality. NAND, which is used in devices like MP3 players, is able to retain more storage, whereas NOR, which is used in mobile phones, is faster. Micron arguably perfected this market. But there have been plenty of struggles.

Not only has Micron lost market share to SanDisk and Samsung, but the declining PC industry and soft ASPs left investors no choice but to bail on the stock. So, the Street rejoiced that the strong performance was largely due to its flagship chips, NAND and DRAM (dynamic random access memory, the type often found in personal computers).

Is this the same management team?
Though I’ve followed this company for several years, I can’t say that I recognize this management team anymore, which is a good thing. The deficits that once aggravated investors are slowly being addressed. For instance, in the quarter, DRAM revenue surged 24% sequentially due to a 38% increase in sales volume. This is despite a 10% drop in ASPs.

Ordinarily, the soft ASP situation, while not new, would be cause for concern. But the Street didn’t expect much price movement. Plus, it seems that Micron focused more this quarter on moving PC-related DRAM, which has much lower margin. In other words, this is where the higher sales volume, while typically good, might have actually hurt.

Impressively, however, NAND revenue shot up 8%, which was offset by continued struggles in the NOR segment, which fell 14% year over year. Management, however, made up for this weakness in profitability. Gross margin arrived at 18%, a 6% improvement sequentially and 5% better year over year. This resulted to a 76% …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

STR Holdings, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2012 Results

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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STR Holdings, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full–Year 2012 Results

ENFIELD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– STR Holdings, Inc. (NYS: STRI) today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2012.

Fourth Quarter 2012 Financial Summary:

  • Net sales of $16.1 million
  • Diluted GAAP loss per share from continuing operations of $(2.97); Diluted non-GAAP loss per share from continuing operations of $(0.09)
  • Free cash flow of $5.1 million
  • Finished the quarter with $82.0 million in cash and no debt
  • Recorded a $172.9 million non-cash long-lived asset impairment

2012 Financial Summary:

  • Net sales of $95.3 million
  • Diluted GAAP loss per share from continuing operations of $(5.12); Diluted non-GAAP loss per share from continuing operations of $(0.05)
  • Free cash flow of $23.2 million

Financial Results

Net sales for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 were $16.1 million. This represents a decline of 30% sequentially and 56% from Q4 2011. On a sequential basis, the decline was driven primarily by a volume decline of approximately 25% and a 7% decline in average sale price (“ASP“). On a year-over-year basis, volume declined by approximately 43% and ASP declined by approximately 23%.

“In the fourth quarter of 2012, solar industry dynamics remained very challenging, particularly in Western markets, and our sequential volume reflects this,” said Robert S. Yorgensen, STR’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We continue to execute our strategic objectives of reducing our cost structure and developing and commercializing innovative products. The launch of our next-generation encapsulant is progressing well with many prospects proceeding to certification and we have received commercial orders for this product from two new customers in China and one of our existing customers in Europe.”

Gross profit for the fourth quarter of 2012 was $(6.0) …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

The Case Against Apple Bears

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By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool

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Apple shares have plummeted to borderline irrational lows. At just 8.2 times forward earnings, investors now have the opportunity to get their hands on a great company at a great price. But two major issues keep many investors glued to the sidelines: slipping margins and increasing competition.

Slipping margins, or a well-executed product mix shift?
Apple’s gross margin is down significantly. In Apple’s first quarter, it decreased to 38.6%, from 44.7% in the year-ago quarter. But does this mean Apple’s lower margins from the first quarter are the new norm? Not necessarily.

First, Apple’s product mix during its first quarter was very unusual, as Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. More than 80% of revenue during the quarter came from new products. “The number of ramps were unprecedented in the fact that we had new products in every category is something we had not done before,” Cook said.

Second, Apple clearly explained that the iPad Mini gross margin is “significantly below the corporate average” and that the new product mix from the cannibalization of full-sized, higher-margin iPads by iPad Minis is a shift management eagerly chooses. “I see cannibalization as a huge opportunity for us,” Cook explained. “Our base philosophy is to never fear cannibalization. If we do, somebody else will just do it and so we never fear it.”

So far, it looks like choosing lower margins is helping Apple bring in a lot more dollars in revenue, even if it’s collecting less profit on each unit it sells. Apple’s iPad segment, for instance, was the company’s fastest-growing segment in the first quarter, with iPad unit sales increasing 48% from the year-ago quarter. Furthermore, estimates from Canalys suggest that “Apple would surely have lost ground to its competitors” without the launch of the iPad Mini; according to Canalys’ estimates, the iPad Mini made up over half of Apple’s total tablet shipments during the quarter.

Apple remains the clear leader in the high-end hardware market
It’s no secret that Apple sacrifices revenue in pursuit of higher margins. Yes, Apple is losing market share. Yes, lower price points from competitors may have been a major influence in Apple’s decision to sell a lower-priced tablet. But there is still very little evidence that Apple’s position as the high-end producer is threatened.

A December 2012 report from IDC showed that Apple shipped 15% of all “connected devices” in the third quarter, trailing Samsung at 21.8%. But Apple was able to maintain an average selling price, or ASP, of $744 across its device categories, compared to Samsung’s $434 ASP.

As IDC‘s Reith points out, “The fact that Apple’s ASP is $320 higher than Samsung’s with just over 20 million fewer shipments in the quarter speaks volumes about the premium product line that Apple sells.”

Furthermore, though Apple’s year-over-year gross profit margin has declined, it still remains significantly higher than the gross margins of other publicly …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Linux

Code for count the frequency of interacting pairs

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By Tzole

Hi all,

I am trying to analyze my data, and I will need your experience.

I have some files with the below format:

Code:
res1 = TYR res2 = ASN
res1 = ASP res2 = SER
res1 = TYR res2 = ASN
res1 = THR res2 = LYS
res1 = THR res2 = TYR

etc (many lines)

I am trying to find the frequency of the above interacting pairs.
The list of this residues are (lets say aminoacids.in):

Code:
ALA
ARG
ASN
ASP
CYS
GLN
GLU
GLY
HIS
ILE
LEU
LYS
MET
PHE
PRO
SER
THR
TRP
TYR
VAL

So, the output file will be sth like this (example):

Code:
TYR – ASN = 50 times
THR – TYR = 39 times

Etc…

Any ideas??
Thank you in advance J

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The UNIX and Linux Forums

Linux

Downloading Multiple Videos using FOR Loop

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By metallica1973

Scenario:

I watch computer based on-line tutorials via a site that uses ASP that allows downloading of their content. When I login and I look at the cookie, I can see that is uses a “AspSessionIdCopy” and a value”

“325434f6-57b2-4b65-8374-blahblahblah”

When I am looking at each video of the course that I am watching I can see that the link is the same with only the number incrementing such as:

Code:
http://www.website.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=108148&playChapter=False
http://www.website.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=108149&playChapter=False
http://www.website.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=108149&playChapter=False

So what I would like to do, is just download the videos using a “for” loop and watch them locally on my laptop at my leisure. Once I know the sequence of numbers of the series, I would proceed in downloading the content. This is my method I will use:

Code:
#!/bin/bash
for (( a=56; a<=96; a++ ))
do
wget -c http://www.website.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=10814$a&playChapter=False
done

My question is that I can see that I will have to use authentication on order to be able to do this from the cli and thats the part that I cannot figure out. What is the correct syntax using wget with authentication:

Code:
wget -c username:password@http://www.website.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=10814$a&playChapter=False

or

adding to cookies.txt:

Code:
"AspSessionIdCopy 325434f6-57b2-4b65-8374-37ca1ec6ad9f"

Code:
#!/bin/bash
for (( a=56; a<=96; a++ ))
do
wget -c --load-cookies cookies.txt username:password@http://www.website.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=10814$a&playChapter=False
done

and download the context that I want. Will this work.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at The UNIX and Linux Forums