Dave, I have been an active investor for more than 50 years, the last 25 of which have been as an investment advisor. When I suggest that the BS downgrade was probably publicized to get a better buying price, I'm speaking from long experience.
The true motive could probably be determined if someone like NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer examined the BS accounts to see if there was a rush of SNDK buying BEFORE the earnings were released. One thing for sure, the SEC won't make such an effort.
The cc was helpful to me, both for the comments of Eli and others, and for the questions asked by some of the investment firm reps (including Merrill Lynch), who were very interested in how it was possible to maintain such good margins. The answer, as Eli has said many times (including yesterday on CNBC), is simply that SanDisk has made a great effort to control costs and improve yield. The result is that, despite price cuts of 34 percent, costs dropped sufficiently to maintain margins at a decent level.
One thing Eli did emphasize was that margins are, in his words, predictable, in the sense that they've maintained margins above 20 percent quarter after quarter. |
