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Dr. Vic,
Good to hear from you! I welcome a bit of cautious optimism on the thread.
To reiterate, ordinarily DELL is a very safe bet going into earnings. However, this month, I am not sure we are looking at an ordinary market situation.
You cited: "Tom Meredith, the company's chief executive officer would not discuss analysts' estimates that Dell will earn 46 cents a share in the second quarter, but said it was historically the most difficult quarter because there's no season or region that drives extraordinary performance."
One of management's (Meredith's) functions, IMO, is to ensure that DELL does not disappoint. One way it does that is to guide analyst expectations. Although the Dataquest/IDC numbers indicate that DELL is growing market share at a phenomenal rate in a growth industry, we also know first-hand that DELL is hiring and building new facilities at a record rate: this promises very nice things for the future, but may impact current quarter results as these items should probably be considered investments which are not yet producing. DELL will beat estmates, but may not blow them away.
Ergo, we may not see the significant immediate run-up some are expecting. Long-term, I don't see a better place for my money.
PS. Suppose Meredith had said, "We will easily beat current estimates by $0.05. The analysts immediately raise their estimates, DELL comes in right on target, and the Jim Pattersons of the world claim, "DELL missed the whisper number", or "DELL barely made estimates."
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