Cohu, Inc. (COHU) Message Board

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To: Maurice S. Green who wrote (419)	10/17/1997 12:23:00 AM
From: Hanry A Hill	of 5426

Since COHU's only analyst is not likeley to get to it for the next five weeks or so its time to play with some numbers. The BASELINE Company profile on COHU indicates that while its historical 5 year growth rate is 47% our analyst, last we heard, calculated it had slowed down to 15% based on his forcasts for this years and last years earnings. Well his forcasts were for a lower '97 than '96 ( when COHU made $2.50). Second quarter earnings exceeded first quarter earnings in '97 by better than 40%, and third quarter earnings were more than 20% above that, If COHU's 4th quarter earnings are 97 cents or about 12% over last quarters, which seems doable given the increased bookings, COHU will earn $3 a share this year. If the same analyst will up his growth rate projection for 1998 ( when the industry is supposed to be really hot supplying new fabs) from 21% to 33%, $4.00 for 98 is attainable. These not terribly agressive assumptions give COHU a forward P/E of about 13 ( trailing PE now about 21) and would indicate that if we have any stability in the markets over the next few months we should see substantial appreciation.