Tippet:
I'm like you, I normally just saddle up and ride until the nag just falls down dead. Unfortunately, the darned things have been eating steroids or something potent, and keep on bucking me into the next county. (g)
The old placid days when an honest short could just "pick 'em and ride 'em" will no doubt return some day, but until this mania is a memory, I'm going to remain fairly gun-shy, and just "nibble" a bit.
I would give odds that you win on your 50 by May bet.
I am very unsure with respect to "the next significant item" for the PC business. As the deterioration is now over two years old, a normal market would have perceived, discounted and gutted this airplant a long time ago. It might be something as simple as a dawning recognition that the industry is in generic trouble, which could lead to some realistic discounting. I feel this way, because I think we are entering a period where the bulls are simply going to be pounded,...day after agonizing day, with nothing but bad news. It gets tougher to "spin" a continuing stream of woe.
The other big one for me is Intel. Like Dell, it is a church where the lambs come to worship. It is also a company that several of us on this thread consider to be trailing smoke, flames and debris. With its basic business model trashed, its market share being snatched by cheeky upstarts, its "Proctor and Gamble" approach to its micro development/marketing in tatters, its margin-producing high end chips not selling well, its Rambus project starting to look like a billion dollar boondoggle, and its end market shrivelling up, it is going to take some sort of a miracle to avoid a big share price melt-down. This one is an "in-the-clear breakaway" (same as a "slam dunk", but with skates and a hockeystick for you "Suthunahs"). (g)
If Intel lets go the way I think it will this quarter, it will be "Zamboni Time" (that's the four wheeled vehicle that scrapes and floods the ice surface after the game is over,...I am determined to add some culture to this thread)
With what's going on in the field, the market's normal perception "lag" (a sales disaster at retail/reseller must then back up the distribution channel, which in turn bloats the producer's inventories and finally shows up in reported numbers) is being compressed. The tennis ball is lodged in the toilet bowl, and Mr. Crapper's famous invention has been flushed. Don't walk around in stocking feet (long), pull on the hip waders (short). (g)
Best, Earlie |
