failed my own cash conversion test (so I placed them in the inventory beneficiaries).
I'm sure I might have missed some nuance here, but for the sake of time/modeling, wanted a $SNDK style name that was actively converting into profitability.
Since a lot of them just stocked up or profited off on inventory (which also should translate to earnings) but... despite their low P/E actually lost money H1 or with Transcend issued convertible bonds/dilution to fund it.
- Transcend is probably the one I'm going to look at a bit further, just did lite DD so far since gross margin hit 77%.
- PSMC fwd p/e is a bit higher compared to the rest but they're hiking wafer costs ~45%, so maybe you get ~6.7–9.5× forward P/E, buttt maybe they keep hiking.
TLDR:
-> Liked Etron, ESMT since there's a lot of earnings discovery recently, and would get priced in sooner or later. -> Nanya/Winbond are probably the most durable of them all.
I do think DDR2/DDR3 trade is more uncharted terrtiory versus your HBM/NAND Samsung/Sk Hynix/Micron, etc.
And we're starting to see another $SNDK type cycle (but maybe less durable, not sure).
Just a notes/thoughts here.
翻译: 我其实把一笔可观的资金配置到了旧制程 DRAM 交易上(今年 Q1 也做了旧制程 NAND/NOR)。
- ESMT (fabless) extraordinary net income growth, wafer supplier in Taiwan, pass through cost, DDR2/DDR3 structurally undersupplied, I see earnings durability throughout 2027, which is why 1.94X P/E was extmreley interesting
- Etron (fabless) I covered before, but monthly profitability is exploding over time, they have a JV with Nanya which kicks off in 2027, and probably my second favorite name
- Winbond, is probably my favorites up there since they actually own fabs and captures downstream products, rather than just wafers like PSMC. Demand visibility I think extends to 2029-2030 now form initial discussions, not exacty an undiscovered name anymore, but I do think it gets re-rated given price hikes/low forward p/e. Maybe 3.5x 2027 earnings for Winbond.. which is also really stellar, but 1.9x current 2026 earnings from ESMT was just insane.
Would say something similar to Nanya that owns DRAM fabs, but Nayna is already well covered.
- Teamgroup expected worse memory shortage around H1 2027, tightening beyond 2027, and they have massive inventory. But it's very inventory heavy type profit.
- TeamGroup, ADATA (extremely inventory heavy), Apacer, Innodisk and Silicon Power had rapidly growing inventory but