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Comment by crmrc114 | Hacker News Reader

This article sounds alarmist. "Revenue fell 12% to $412 billion in 2019, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Monday in a statement. That’s the biggest drop since 2001, when industry sales slumped 32% as the dot-com bubble burst."

I don't see how 12% is a skyfall number. Especially when compared to 32%.

It was pay-walled so I did not read any further.

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> It was pay-walled...

For others who hit the wall. https://outline.com/VYJEa5

We can argue about adjective choice, but a 12% revenue drop in any industry is going to get people's attention.

The environment in which that 32% drop happened involved thousands of companies failing within a short time span. I personally ended up leaving the Bay Area after being out of work for over a year. (I came back.) Just to offer some context to hang those numbers on.

I don't see that happening at all currently. The housing market is insane in the bay area, as usual, even out here in the tri-valley area. as far as livermore, houses are selling like hot-cakes, not even on the market for a week.

Didn't intend to imply we're on the edge of a tech-recession or anything close to that.

But I'm pretty sure property prices are not a leading indicator of tech crashes. In the first dot.com crash they didn't drop until after the job market carnage was well over.

https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/3-recessions-2-bu...

Revenue falling at all in any tech industry is usually cause for extreme concern, as all the investor numbers assume infinite growth.

Perhaps that’s the real problem there.

If companies like Intel and AMD are still turning a respectable profit, there’s no cause for actual panic, yet.

Investors should learn that intractable P/Es on established companies are, at best, unwise in all but the edge cases.

P/Es aren't the best way to trade companies like AMD where past earnings are not indicative of future earnings.

Let's stop discussing a hypothetical. Analysts in this space are well aware of the cyclical nature of it, and have better data than some of the companies in question. The premise is false.

Cyclical trough/peak earnings normalization is decades old from industrial and resource sectors.

"as all the investor numbers assume infinite growth"

This is absolutely not the case in semis.

Some of these companies had near monopolies for long stretches of time. If some of that is busted up through competition it could drop revenue while still being healthy. If you're invested broadly in the whole sector you might lose, but if you're invested in the successful challengers you win.

If actual demand was lowered rather than just supply changing due to effective competition, then it would be a bigger concern.

Turn off the javascript on the page.

using "reader view" in my browser and then refreshing works for me.

I did not think that would work- why even bother with the darn paywall! I just guessed that if you disabled js the page would fail to load like other news sites.

Anyhow, thank you!

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