El- A little bloom is off the Kumar rose lately...Last summer, he was pretty much the MAN...had made prescient (SP?) calls on Gateway, CPQ, was spot on with Dell, and I think nailed HP (as well)..
This was particularly noteworthy because he was going negative with most of his calls (while I'm sure his investment colleagues at Piper were pressuring him to shut up)...and, somewhat impressively, not regurgitating the (particular) company's party line..
However...
He seems to have lost his way a bit (a lot?) lately.....His projects (about Gateway) were simply wrong...it appears that he tried to make an early call for the quarter, beating the rest of his colleagues, but taking a chance.......(starting to believe his own hype?)...and underestimated the strength of Thanksgiving-Christmas sales...
Also, Chuzzlewit disproved his (most recent prediction) about Dell's current growth rate..by showing that he had misused/miscalculated based on the most recent IDC data...
So, even though he has been down on CPQ this quarter...his original call (that CPQ would not make the quarter's estimates) was made EARlY in the quarter..and like Gateway, he will probably pay the price when the truth (earnings) comes out tommorrow...He simply tried to become too prophetic (before enough data was in)...and, now, his reputation is paying the price a bit...
If he is (somehow) right, about channel-stuffing..heaven help all longs here..
Regardless of our dislike/distrust of him, I give him some credit for taking a stand (unpopular)...the Street needs more independent thinkers... |
