I am surprised at the lack of interest in DEC on this board. The stock performance has certainly been less than awe inspiring but that could change.
S&P Outlook recently raised DEC to 4 stars citing improving PC sales. The just announced 4100 series servers should maintain the performance edge and keep Alpha sales momemtum going. At least one industry analyst thinks DEC's new NT clustering software should be good for a 4-5 percent server market share gain within a year. And how about the Alta Vista software product line, it may not add a lot to the bottom line for awhile but it looks like a very astute strategy. Later this year look for the Microsoft alliance to begin to pay off when corporations begin upgrading to NT 4.0.
At 55 this stock is just too cheap, estimates for 97 earnings are 5 a share for a forward PE of 11.
Whats holding down the price? My guess is that mutual fund selling is the main reason. The company is out of favor because of the last quarters disappointment in PC's. A couple of analyst upgrades and good earnings for the quarter would get us back to 70 pretty quick.
Hope to hear from some other DEC followers, especially the bears who must have other reasons for selling besides technical. |
