
Warning signs: Global semiconductor sales drop 14.5% in 1H19 - baybal2
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20190806PR204.html
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rathel
I wonder how much of the drop is attributable to memory industry. As some
headline said: boom and bust is business as usual for memory. Though I don't
feel bad for them, as they have been involved in one price fixing scandal
after another.

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machineloveus
Another obvious indicator on the path towards the nigh-oncoming recession or
just a blip on the radar?

Personally I believe a recession is coming. I believe what we're seeing now
are disparate pieces of information stacking up. Sales down here. Instability
over there.

There's so much kindling laying around. It just needs a spark.

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mrguyorama
I too believe a recession is on it's way, but I have zero idea whether it is
tomorrow or a decade from now. Everything feels overhyped and full of scammy
cash, nothing feels sustainable, and we didn't learn much from 2008. But my
feeling can't help anyone or anything.

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futureastronaut
Please don't editorialize titles.

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umvi
Seems like every day now there's a blatant "Huge Recession Incoming! Brace
Yourselves!" type story floating to the top.

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mywittyname
To be fair, nearly every day information surfaces that indicate that a
recession is imminent/already here. Trade war fallout, Fed wavering on raising
rates, yield curve inversion, poor performance 2019H1 for so many key
companies.

The economy is always a reliable source of news. And the mixed signals between
employment, wages, and corporate performance makes it interesting.

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bluGill
It has been that way for as long as I can determine. There are always bad
signs. Sometimes the doom is hours away, sometimes it is years away and in a
completely different area. I have no idea how to tell the difference and I
don't believe anyone else does either.

There are things you should do to prepare yourself. There are things you can
do to prevent doom. They are all things you should be doing anyway even if God
told you things would be alright for many more years.

~~~
mywittyname
Between 2014 and 2018 or so, the mainstream economic outlook was really good.
Unemployment feel below 5%, consumer confidence finally turned positive,
economists were complaining about Yellen's continued doveishness towards
interest rates when economic indicators showed things were strong, then the
tax cuts and associated bonuses and reinvestment.

Brexit happened in mid 2016, the US trade wars start up in late 2017, consumer
confidence fell off a cliff last year, etc.

Yeah, there's segments where doom and gloom is perennial. But mainstream
reporting tend to report based on fundamentals such as employment, wages,
corporate profits, etc.

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bluGill
Look outside the mainstream and you would have seen the people warning about
the crash to come then. Nothing came of it as it turns out, but many crashes
are not seen in the mainstream press in advance either so that doesn't mean
much.

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Aperocky
Measuring by dollar amount isn't helping. Silicon prices fluctuates wildly and
easily more than the 15% we're seeing here.

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tyingq
Wild guess:

A) People hanging on to both phones and PCs longer as Moore's slows down.
Maybe also cars, because of higher quality over time.

And less so, but perhaps a contributor:

B) Big cloud providers are better at getting high utilization out of the same
number of CPUs. So, as load moves from on-prem to cloud, overall footprint
drops.

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gm_fan_boi
2/3 of my home pcs are more than 5 years old, all are reliable and performant
for my purposes.

