Boring Portfolio Report
Wednesday, February 28, 1996

(FOOL GLOBAL WIRE)
by Greg Markus (MF Boring)

Two hundred shares of Borders Group (BGP) made their way into the Borefolio today. I actually managed not to top-tick the stock, picking them up at $22 3/8. The closing quote for BGP today was unchanged; but with the bid at $22 1/8, plus the broker's commish, we start off a bit in the hole.

In celebration of our purchase, Borders announced the opening a new superstore in Pleasanton, Calif., this Friday. The press release notes that "several in-store grand opening events are planned," including a visit by Giggles the Clown! Quick, David and Tom! You guys can catch a flight into Oakland or SFO and be there in time to autograph some books! Just imagine: Giggles the Clown and Gardners the Fools!

Pleasanton is just up the road from Fremont-based Lam Research, and the folks at Lam could probably use a visit from Giggles right about now. As I noted last night in the Lam folder, my conversation with company revealed their absolute wonderment at the way "investors" have bailed out of the chip equipment group just as the group is in the midst of some of its best business in years. LRCX was up a bit in the morning today but sold off in the afternoon, to close at a bid of $38 3/4, down another $1 3/4. To paraphrase Zorba the Greek: Boring does not provoke.

Not surprisingly, Kulicke & Soffa followed a similar glide path today--up in the morning, down in the afternoon. KLIC closed down $5/8, to $20 5/8. This was despite news released today that K&S and Delco Electronics, a division of Hughes Electronics <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE:GMH)") else Response.Write("(NYSE:GMH)") end if %>, would jointly form Flip Chip Technologies.

Flip Chip would be 51% owned by K&S and 49% Delco-owned. As the press release notes, "Flip Chip Technologies plans to establish an independent manufacturing facility to be announced at a later date. The facility is expected to be operational in 1997."

Delco has been producing flip chips since 1969 and currently is bumping more than 300,000 chips per day. In comparison to conventional assemblies, flip chip technology places chips on circuit boards face side down. The chips are connected to circuits by small "bumps" of solder. The configuration eliminates wire bonding and allows shorter interconnections between circuits and components to provide more robust, lighter, smaller and faster networks.

This kind of bonding will be used for Intel's P-7 chip, so it was essential that K&S expand its capabilities in that direction, which is exactly what it's now accomplished. Jim Chiafery of K&S will be explaining this and other developments tomorrow morning to analysts assembled at the Robertson Stephens conference at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco. If any members of Fooldom manage to get in, we'd all appreciate a report.

Green Tree was unchanged today--no news. Shares of Potash Corp. were *also* off--down a full $1 3/8, to close at $74 1/4. There was no news that I could find, other than an item about exploration of new potash reserves in Thailand by a British outfit. We'll wait for spring planting and see if our POT starts to grow then.

Lastly, and to prevent a totally down day, old reliable Texas Industries managed to eke out a $3/8 gain today, to $61 1/4. Thanks, podnah. I needed that.

Today's Moves

 BGP   -   1/4*
GNT   ---    
KLIC  -   5/8
LRCX  -1  3/4
POT   -1  3/8
TXI   +   3/8

*reflects change from today's purchase price
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