Re: Andy Neff and "Computer Week in Preview"
Sorry I don't have a link, I get the information via fax. As of right now all I have is the highlights of the piece. The main piece comes in the mail. Let me quote you the whole thing and I'll let you judge for yourself. Let me state that this comes from a Bear Stearns brief from the "Computer Week in Preview".
Strong Computer Orders: As we noted recently, contrary to current anxiety, orders for computer equipment accelerated in February according to the Commerce Department data, showing a 17.9% gain in February (on a 12-month basis), up from a 13.3% gain in January and a 3.5% gain in December, indicating a pickup in demand for computer orders. (Note that these are in dollars not units.) Also shipments showed the same accelerating trend (up 8.9% in December, up 12.2% in January, and up 17.6% in February). This result is consistent with our comments on end-demand that we noted in our recent "Computer Snapshot", although some of these trends are masked by the inventory reduction efforts by Compaq and IBM. Moreover and importantly, this uptick is similar to the pickup we saw last year at this time, during a comparable period of anxiety for technology stocks, but which turned out to be the start of a pronounced upward move in technology stocks. The one-month gain was up 88% in February after a 43% annualized gain in January. Also, Europe continues to strengthen as we have noted.
Mr. Neff claims that the Commerce data actually backs up the read he is getting on end demand. How the data is collected, I do not know. I am always leery of year over year changes, but the trend no matter how the data are collected is positive no matter how you read it. |
