I agree with Gabe's post to the extent that the next quarter for IBM and CPQ won't look very good because of channel stuffing ..
However, when it comes to talking about unit growth versus revenue growth, I think this guy hit the nail on the head:
>>It's the profits, stupid... When these technology companies, many of which essentially are commodity companies, have revenue growth that disappoints, they start talking about units.That's great, but you don't hear Nordstrom (NOBE) talking about how many dresses they sold, gold companies talking about how many gold bars they sold or steel companies talking about how many sheets of flat-rolled steel they sold. Because at the end of the day, at some point, it has to translate into profitability. <<
I don't care how many boxes DELL sells if I am investor -- I care about how profits are growing and/or are going to grow going forward and whether the current stock price is above or below what would be a reasonable price to pay for that profit growth ... that's it.
If you use 12 month rolling averages to make a decision on whether or not to sell a stock, you won't make a hasty decision - that's for sure, but you may be a little slow making a decision also ...
I think you need a similar schedule which shows dollars in 12 month rolling averages and profitability for the industry and for DELL and the price of DELL stock vs. earnings ... will look forward to seeing that one ...
One with the historical price to |
