I have a weakness for companies that make investors argue. Give me a business everyone loves, and I immediately start wondering how much optimism has already been stuffed into the price. Give me a business everyone hates, and I start checking whether the hatred has become a substitute for reading. Intel occupies the particularly entertaining territory where the spreadsheet sounds encouraged, the skeptics remain unconvinced, and everyone believes the other side has misunderstood something painfully obvious. That makes Intel interesting. It does not automatically make Intel cheap, safe, or destined to reward my patience. I like a comeback story as much as anyone, but the stock market has charged plenty of people admission to watch a comeback that remained permanently in rehearsal. Before getting sentimental about a familiar technology name, I want to know what is improving, what remains expensive, and how much success I am already being asked to finance. The headline needs one qualificat...
There are certain phrases in investing that immediately make me reach for my wallet. Not because I want to buy something. Because I want to make sure my wallet is still there. “This time is different” is one of them. Those four words have financed more bad decisions than casinos, sports betting and relatives with revolutionary business ideas combined. So when I hear people suggesting that Micron Technology may have finally escaped the brutal boom-and-bust cycle that has defined the memory industry for decades, my first instinct is skepticism. Memory companies are cyclical. Everybody knows this. Demand rises. Prices rise. Manufacturers expand capacity. Everybody becomes convinced that demand will remain wonderful forever. Too much capacity arrives. Prices collapse. Margins disappear. Everybody suddenly discovers religion. Capital spending gets cut. Supply tightens. Demand recovers. Then we repeat the entire ceremony. Micron has spent much of its public-market life riding that roller coa...