"It's welcome news for European buyers who've been holding back."

Terms of the agreement with an unidentified European buyer were not disclosed.

Instead, European buyers could pay some $23m more than the $200m their chips would probably have cost them if the market had been left to itself.

What worries me, though, is that for the past 12 months it's been European buyers propping up the market.

For another, European buyers are sniffing around the magazine market more than ever.

One striking fact that emerged from these sales was the strength of European buyers.

"The companies tend to study longer than European or American buyers."

Germany is the major European buyer, with 70% of the market.

They would sell their captives or prisoners of war to European buyers.

Right now there seem to be more European buyers than Americans.