An excerpt from B. Fleckenstein's Friday article would indicate that things do not bode well at least short term for the PC industry as a whole and for Intel specifically. Could not find a link re inventory but do have one for emchine's CFO resigning.
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The writing's on the wall, the floor, the windows. . . The strongest index was the Sox, aided by the prop jobs in Intel, Micron and Rambus. The disconnect there continues to be absolutely staggering, considering the information that's coming out. Today, EMachines (EEEE) apparently told analysts that the last two to three weeks' sales have really tapered off, and its inventory has now doubled. It's interesting to note that its CFO resigned today as well.
For those who don't know, the reason EMachines is significant is it is about the third largest PC vendor, behind Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, selling at retail to individuals. And, it makes 100-percent Intel-based machines, primarily Celurons. So here we have yet another data point on top of the data point we got from Gateway, on top of the other data points we've had revealing weakness in the retail component of the PC sector, on top of the nuclear winter problems. And yet what do folks do when it looks like the PC makers have problems? You got it: buy Intel and Micron. Makes sense to me. |
