Citi Sees “Snowballing Signs Of Softness” In Chips; Downgrades ISIL, FCS, RFMD, CLS, BHE

Citigroup’s Craig Ellis, who a month ago made wholesale estimate cuts for the semiconductor stocks he covers, today brought numbers down yet again.

“In the past three weeks, snowballing signs of product sales softness, freshly eroding macro indicators and dour field checks portend even greater near-term downside and a shallower mid-’09 recovery than our estimates reflect,” he wrote this morning. Ellis says he concluded that further estimate cuts and target reductions were needed.

He cut his ratings on Intersil (ISIL) to Hold from Buy, Fairchild (FCS) to Sell from Hold, and RF Micro Devices (RFMD) to Sell from Hold. He also cut estimates and/or price targets on Analog Devices (ADI), Broadcom (BRCM), Linear (LLTC), Microchip (MCHP), Marvell (MRVL), National Semi (NSM), ON Semi (ONNN), Silicon Labs (SLAB), Semtech (SMTC), SanDisk (SNDK) and Skyworks (SWKS).

Meanwhile, Citigroup’s Jim Suva, who follows the contract electronics manufacturers, writes today that he sees “practically no organic sales growth” in his sector in the next 12 months and through 2009. He has no Buy rated stocks, seeing “negative leverage in a slowing demand environment, excess industry capacity, increased global competition and opaque demand visibility.

Suva today cut his ratings on Celestica (CLS) and Benchmark (BHE) to Sell from Hold. He cut estimates and price targets on 13 companies, including those two, as well as Amphenol (APH), Arrow (ARW), Avnet (AVT), AVX (AVX), Flextronics (FLEX), Kemet (KEM), Molex (MOLX), Plexus (PLXS), Sanmina (SANM), Tyco Electronics (TEL) and Vishay (VSH).

Among the downgraded stocks:

• Intersil is down 86 cents, or 5.7%, to $14.26.


• Fairchild is down 54 cents, or 6.7%, to $7.48.


• RF Micro is down 27 cents, or 9.6%, to $2.54.


• Celestica is down 67 cents, or 11.7%, to $5.08.


• Benchmark is down 81 cents, or 6.1%, to $12.46.