A Visit to IBM from Ole St. Herb
By Herb Greenberg
Senior Columnist
12/14/00 6:31 AM ET
Two months ago, in a letter, I had my say:
IBM should disappoint (in a Lou Gerstner sort of way).
Just a few days later, while earnings were fine;
revenues were not; they were way out of line.
Wall Street reacted like it was one big surprise,
but it was only to those not counted among the wise.
Fast forward to today, and I'm thinking about
if I should urge Lou to give a pre-earnings rout.
All he must do, is look here and look there;
if they haven't preannounced, earnings (at best) have been fair.
Look at Intel and AMD, peas in a pod,
Microchip, Cypress Semi (whose CEO thinks he's God).
And Compaq, Dell and Gateway's bad news so compliant;
and dot-coms like Razorfish, Sapient and Scient.
In drives, Quantum Hard Disk, the sole game in town,
has said biz ain't booming, meaning IBM's could be down.
In mainframes, IBM has that all to its own,
but a slowdown at Sun should make Big Blue's folks moan.
One reader whose company supplies IBM,
says payment's been stretched to 45 days, if then.
You know how pension income's a sugar daddy of sorts?
Well Northrop's is lagging 15%, or so it reports.
So at IBM payables will be something to see,
as will pension income, with the market so jitt-ery.
Meanwhile, IBM's trading at under two-times its sales,
not the multiple of one, like many of its compara-bles.
To get there, say short-sellers, $50 should be its price.
Asked for comment, an IBM spokeswoman said, "No dice."
Which brings me right back to the heart of the matter:
Should I urge IBM to get out there and chatter?
Nah, I figured, Lou's style is to wait till the day,
like he's wont to do (in that Gerstner sort of way). |
