CS, I checked out the link you posted to the DELL thread, which had the link to the Forbes article. "Most investors" can indeed recall the last time that WS tried to convince investors that the computer makers ' sales had reached the point of market saturation. Believe it or not, the collective wisdom of Wall Street can make serious errors of judgement, by jumping to the wrong conclusions too quickly.
In the Forbes article: >And we haven't seen a serious dip in computer demand in seven years too long ago for most investors to recall.<
Ah yes, but if investors were reading the WSJ and most other financial publications during Jan-April or so of 1996, they will probably experience deja vu while reading this Forbes article you posted. During that time period I clipped out a sizeable stack of articles from the WSJ and IBD bemoaning the "slump" due to "market saturation" in the computer maker industry. "We shouldn't be surprised, it was too good to last", was the popular refrain. By the middle of 1996, after 2 quarters of impressive gains by the box makers, there was only one article that quoted an analyst eating a little bit of crow: "There wasn't any slump in computer sales". Hmmmm?? By the end of the year, DELL had run from a split adjusted 13-1/4 to 67-7/8 (412%), and CPQ had run from 36 to 87 (142%).
You can't believe everything you read, CS.
Dwight |
