More on the perception that Dell isn't defending it's stock price with vapid PR.
If anyone thinks that positive PR at times like these will prop up a stock price, they probably need to read "Investment Psychology Explained" by Pring.
Case in point, excerpts from Jubaks latest column on Intel..
Now that the market seems to have decided that the Federal Reserve will raise rates later this month, a company could probably announce that it had found a way to turn lead into gold and its stock wouldn't move up more than a quarter of a point. Most investors are simply too worried about the negative possibilities lurking out there to give much thought to anything other than cutting their losses.
...this is exactly the time to be looking for stocks that haven't moved up despite a steady stream of good news. Those stocks may be frustratingly unresponsive to positive developments now, but they are building up a flood of good news that should push them higher once the current dam of worry breaks.
INTEL
Here's a partial list of the good news the semiconductor maker has delivered in the last six weeks.
In its quarterly earnings report, Intel announced that it had not only stopped losing market share at the lower end of the PC market to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and National Semiconductor's (NSM) Cyrix unit, but had gained sales against these competitors.
In that same report, Intel reported radical reductions in manufacturing costs. The company is ahead of schedule -- and at least three months ahead of Advanced Micro Devices -- in moving to 0.18 micro production. At this smaller size, Intel gets more chips out of each piece of silicon and that reduces the cost of making each chip.
National Semiconductor threw in the towel and announced that it would exit the PC chip business.
Intel announced a new generation of the StrongArm chip that it acquired from Digital Equipment that will accelerate Intel's entry into the market for information appliances. The new StrongArm chip uses half the power and runs almost three times as fast as the previous version.
Intel has inked a series of acquisitions -- the purchase of Level One Communications (LEVL) is the most important -- that continue the company's march into the communications chip business.
The company's reward for all this hard work? Intel's stock has tumbled 21% since April 26 and is now about 40% below its February 1999 high.
I understand the reasons for this, but they are all short-term. June-quarter earnings look light. Daniel Niles of BancBoston Robertson Stephens sent the stock almost $3.50 a share lower by warning that Intel could miss analyst estimates by 2 cents a share. He cited price cutting by National Semiconductor as it quits the business, the continued erosion of margins as the market moves toward the sub-$500 PC and the normal difficulties of the June quarter. With the market in its current state of mind, those are powerful facts. Come September, I don't think anyone will care.
moneycentral.msn.com
Intel despite all this good news and PR is down 40% from it's
high... almost exactly the same as Dell. Do you really believe
desperation PR in the form of sensationalizing "business as usual"
would move the stock? Dell will issue news when there is
something worth reporting.
A sampling of Dell announcements in the last week...
- ASP's not expected to drop as fast in 99 as 98.
- eCommerce expected to add 20-40 billion over the next few years.
- Huge current opportunity to go after Compaq's enterprise market.
Nobody is paying attention to the positives right now.
MEATHEAD |
