CPU - do people ever learn from history? --Let's find out..
...it's not going to be a great PC Christmas. It'll be a great computer-software, video-games Christmas, however. But anyone who is betting his farm, so to speak, on these computer retailers who are primarily PC-driven, such as Computer City and CompUSA , is going to have real troubles...
From a Barron's interview with C. Britt Beemer - consumer research "guru" 11/13/95
Price of CPU on 11/13/95: about 9 a share
CPU low in 1996: about 14 a share. High: about 30 a share, which means anyone who "bet the farm" when the article came out would've had between 60 to 340% more farm in 1996.
...CompUSA also shocked its fans with bad news Friday, although a trading halt in the company's shares prevented those erstwhile boosters from venting their spleens, and more. Late in the session the Dallas-based retailer warned of lower-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter sales, and suggested it may not be profitable in the period, which ends June 25. Analysts had been eyeballing earnings of around 19 cents a share...These grim tidings from the nation's largest computer superstore chain may yet bode ill for other technology concerns, some of which already are looking sickly...
From a Barron's article in the 06/27/94 edition...during this time, insiders began buying CPU stock.
Not-So-Super Concept? In Long Haul, CompUSA 's Strategy May Not Compute
Barron's article by Rhonda Brammer......appearing in the 03/09/92 edition
...One of his key advantages over CompUSA , [Bizmart President] Berk contends, is selling products from IBM and Compaq -- names CompUSA isn't authorized to carry....
-taken from the same article
...Market researcher Douglas Kass, a senior analyst at Dataquest, agrees that selling paper and computers is better than peddling computers alone given the computer industry's state. Last year in the U.S., he points out, unit sales of personal computers increased only 3.3%, while some observers had been looking for growth as high as 15%. And, in dollars, Kass stresses, "U.S. factory revenue was down 14% last year." ..
-taken from the same article
...Analysts at International Data Corp., Lee Levitt and Chuck Barney, take a similarly bleak view of pure computer superstores ...
-taken from the same article
...The entire U.S., according to Levitt and Barney, can support no more than 100 computer superstores. ...
-taken from the same article
...But at $36, CompUSA 's stock is selling for about 70 times this fiscal year's numbers and roughly 40 times fiscal 1993's. Those multiples suggest a lot more than "perhaps" -- they suggest that CompUSA is a sure thing. And, as all the foregoing implies, it simply isn't.
-taken from the same article
Don't bet against CompUSA...you're gonna lose.
Bill Wexler 11/04/98 |
