2015全美研究团队:半导体资本设备，第一名:James Covello

高盛公司的研究员詹姆斯Covello他成功地捍卫了自2009年以来每年都稳居榜首的地位，客户们也为他在充分知情的情况下保持独立而欢呼。“他一直是业内最好的主题分析师之一，”一位投资组合经理表示，他提供“有相当丰富经验的优质想法”。特别是，另一位投资者回忆道，这位42岁的研究人员“在2014年8月下调了半导体行业的评级，当时微芯片(Microchip Technology)事先宣布了负面消息，英特尔(Intel Corp.)也宣布了负面消息。第一季度业绩糟糕透顶，内存价格开始暴跌。该领域的基本面低迷现在已被广泛承认，而吉姆的时机选择非常有先见之明。”事实上，第三位支持者说:“吉姆是一位非常深入的分析师，非常了解半导体和半导体资本设备行业。他对自己的信念表现出了勇气，他建议卖出英特尔股票，这一建议被证明是正确的，在一段时间后，他的建议受到了严厉的批评。我非常尊敬吉姆。”去年8月，Covello预测该行业过热。例如，他指出，最近一个季度芯片出货量超过正常需求5%，半导体营收的增长速度也快于许多关键终端市场设定的速度。与此同时，他重申了对总部位于加州圣克拉拉的宽带半导体制造商英特尔(Intel)三年以来的“卖出”评级。 Throughout, he has stayed with his buy rating on Freemont, California’s Lam Research Corp. The supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductors industry is a long-standing favorite among the eight companies the analyst monitors in this space, in part thanks to its relatively low level of exposure to Intel. In the spring he encouraged clients to buy Lam on a dip, advising that it was suffering a knock-on effect of weak semiconductors’ fundamentals and that orders should pick up on an uptick in capital expenditures. He is neutral on this sector but believes that “overall industry capital spending will increase in 2015, driven by technology inflections — in particular, 3D NAND. Semi memory makers such as Samsung [Electronics Co.] and Intel/Micron are starting to aggressively ramp up 3D NAND production, and the semi equipment companies are the primary beneficiaries of this product cycle. Intel has cut capex several times this year, and that is offsetting some of the strength in the market from the 3D NAND transition, but we continue to believe overall spending will increase year over year in 2015.”