CNET, The Week Ahead:Dell Speaks(twice)
by: skeptically 03/31/02 02:39 pm
Msg: 279303 of 279304
news.com.com
The week ahead: Dell speaks
By Sam Ames
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
March 31, 2002, 6:00 AM PT
Following are some of the notable tech-related events scheduled for the week of April 1 through April 5.
Devotees of Dell Computer will be able to gorge on a fair amount of news from the company this week.
The direct seller of PCs will hold a press conference Wednesday to talk up the latest happenings in its enterprise computer business, a highly prized market where Dell faces such giants as Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Compaq Computer.
Dell week continues Thursday when the company's top executives host an analyst meeting that will be Webcast.
Two conferences should draw attention to the tech sector. Storage Networking World in Palm Desert, Calif., will attract technophiles and professionals interested in finding a home for all the computer data generated by today's information economy, while computer security experts will gather at SANS2002 in Orlando, Fla., to learn how to protect that information.
After winning shareholder approval for their merger, tech giants Hewlett-Packard and Compaq are expected to announce next week the process by which the combined company will decide which workers to keep as well as to unveil another layer of top executives
Wall Street will also scrutinize the Labor Department's employment report Friday. The report is a key measure of the nation's economic health and will provide data like the unemployment rate for March.
The markets will get somewhat of a breather from earnings announcements as pre-announcement season comes to a close and companies focus on closing the books on their first quarter.
Companies fared better during pre-announcement season from last year, according to First Call.
Of the 801 first-quarter pre-announcements so far, 385, or 48 percent of the total, warned of lower earnings; while 241, or 30 percent, said earnings would exceed expectations. That compares favorably with the same period a year ago when 655 of the 941 pre-announcements were negative, or 70 percent.
Earnings from companies in the Standard and Poor's 500 index will still be down 12 percent from last year's first quarter, compared with a 21.7 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2001 from the same quarter a year ago.
However, even though it seems like earnings will improve for the upcoming quarter, researchers tell a different story. When adjusted for seasonal factors, the earnings decline of S&P 500 companies from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the first quarter of this year is about the same, according to Chuck Hill, First Call's director of research.
On the bright side, Hill believes that earnings will show growth in the second quarter from the year before, after five consecutive quarters of declines. The information was gathered from First Call, Hoover's Online, CCBN's StreetEvents and CNET Investor.
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