Seagate Technology Corp shares took a real purler on those fourth quarter figures showing net profit down 56% at $16.5m (CI No 975): the company’s market value was reduced by $278.5m, 29.7%, as the shares tumbled $5.50 to $13 even, and the consensus was that the company has put in too much capacity too fast, has discounted too aggressively to maintain its lead over a crowd of thrusting younger companies – and that it may also have been hurt by the fact that customers have been unable to make as many micros and workstations as they’d like because of the shortage of memory chips.
