someone agrees with my 38 cents.
On Monday, Rick Sherlund at Goldman Sachs suggested to clients that there was a moderate upside potential to their estimate of $0.34 for Microsoft (MSFT), but that didn't stop the market from thinking that the whisper numbers were too high for the company. Some of the fear is because the company, like in past quarters, has given analysts some cautious comments to keep expectations low. However, this quarter the analysts and the market appear to have taken the guidance seriously because of Intel's disappointing results last week. Several analysts have suggested that after this quarter there will be some upward revisions to estimates, but for the first quarter the analysts want to wait to see if year 2000 concerns will hurt Microsoft Office sales.
Still, many analysts have been very optimistic, citing the fact that Intel's sales hit their expectations, which means new Windows 98 sales have been good. The more bullish analysts also believe the higher end Windows NT sales will be strong, while Office sales remain solid. The top estimate among the nearly 30 analysts following Microsoft is $0.37 and with the conservative talk on Monday, some of the whispering matched this number. However, the overall whispering has been for the company to report revenues above $6 billion, which supports our Earnings Whisper number of $0.38.
Microsoft will report earnings after the bell on Tuesday and the conference call may be heard live at vcall.com beginning at 5:30 PM ESt.
regards |
