Earlie,
I agree that it is hard to imagine where Niles could have got the new information from. But, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that he might have been guessing.
Also, DELL's presentation in the GS conference earlier last week was considered by most to be rather bullish.
As for the other two analysts, Kumar, you will recall, missed GTW's earnings by a mile last quarter after similar warnings, so I think it is important to keep in perspective the track record of the analysts coming up with the negative calls. And SSB - AFAIR - in fact left open the possibility that DELL may beat earnings by several pennies. Besides, as you have said yourself, none of the two analysts provided any hard numbers based on some kind of a model, so I am personally reluctant to go with their estimates.
As for your estimates, I would appreciate if you can post your model and numbers, as other models that I have seen as well as IDC and Dataquest numbers indicate the opposite.
I completely agree wrt your last paragraph, but is Niles - hardly a DELL bull - one of DELL's favored analysts? Perhaps, perhaps not.
In any case, dancing to the tunes of analysts' flip flops perhaps makes investors lazy as well.
-BGR.
PS: Also wrt insider sales, there has been detailed discussions about why insider sales based on options which are about to expire mean very little in relation to the executive's visions of the company's future. I won't repeat the arguments here. |
