Naiwen Kerr, assistant vice president of Taiwan International Securities, also thinks the NT dollar's appreciation will take a bite out of earnings this year.
Kerr said that for every NT$0.30 the local unit climbs, roughly NT$20 million is shaved off the top of Unitech's profits.
Unitech ended Saturday at NT$51, up 25.3 percent since Jan. 29.
In addition, Kerr noted that the lead time between the time a customer places its order and the time it actually needs the product has decreased, from four to six weeks in the fourth quarter to two to three weeks today.
A longer lead time indicates a customer is worried that PCB supplies are low.
"As a result, we can only say that the recovery trend is there," Kerr said. "But it's not a good time yet."
Dominic Grant, high-tech analyst at Primasia Securities, who rates Compeq as an "accumulate," describes himself as "a perennial bear on the PCB market."
"The rise in sales in January was a bit of an anomaly," he said, mostly because customers had delayed their orders due to Y2K concerns,
But companies, such as Compeq, that are "focusing on new technology are going to come out of it first," as they can charge higher margins for their products.
But he doubts the life-saving attempts of companies such as Unitech, which has announced plans to manufacture mobile phone handsets.
"That's not necessarily a good thing ... You're just going to be making the same phones as everyone else and the margins will come down quickly."
Broadband boost
Shares of Taiwan Cement (臺泥) have been trading like an Internet stock as of late, largely because it holds 9 percent of one. The company owns a piece of broadband cable Internet service provider GigaMedia.
Over the last three weeks, Taiwan Cement has climbed 40 percent to NT$54 Saturday.
GigaMedia, which listed Friday on the NASDAQ in the US, is worth US$4.4 billion after retail investors bid up the company to US$88 per share. That puts the value of Taiwan Cement's stake at roughly US$400 million.
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