The answer is "it's unclear". There is of course a bright line for companies choosing to make there own announcements, they must be accurate. This issue is whether a company has the duty to correct an inaccurate announcement that has been made by another. Maybe, how material/wrong/factual is it, maybe. If it is an opinion of another, probably not. Here the issue is "will they preannounce". By not preannouncing they have responded. Are they required by securities laws? A few cents, may not be material. But it is simply good business to bring expectations in line with reality, if expectations are seriously out of whack AND the company FIRMLY KNOWS this.
You are correct, none of this has anything to do with some arbitrary "30 days".
INTC has been giving guidance all along, nothing has changed. It has been relatively positive. This might in arithmetic terms mean 2 cents below or 10 cents above, both could be gleaned from existing guidance.
It is interesting that Dan Niles, who 'magically'* manages to get Earnings to the exact penny has been strangely silent. Gee, I wonder if the Bank of Boston, his bank is out loading up on INTC. I do not know who their MM is,
but anyone with Level II could tell us.
IMHO,
Duke
*My guess is that Bank of Boston has some loans on something and those loans have income commitments and somehow the unit sales have to be turned into the bank. This certainly would explain why Danny Boy is always right on the numbers while evidencing ZERO business sense. |
