Kelvin, All,
It seems to the naieve (e.g. me) that CPQ may be a pretty risky stock to hold over the next 6 months. With all the talk of global recession or even depression, and the slowdown in corporate earnings in the US/Europe and thus also in corporate capital expenditures, a company like CPQ (and its competitors) could be pretty strongly impacted.
If there is no economic slowdown then all will be well with CPQ, of course. And it is not expensive relative to consensus earnings projections.
I wonder what stocks/sectors might have a lower downside risk in the event of a slowdown, while still having a very positive outlook in a healthy economy ?
Staying in the tech sector, perhaps less commodity-like businesses (e.g. software) would be a safer bet. MSFT, EMC, SAP, etc. are all pretty richly valued at present, but there must be good, solid software companies out there with dominant positions in their market that are still reasonably priced. Problem is, I can't think of any offhand.
AF |
