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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: freeus who wrote (145013)	10/18/1999 11:11:00 PM
From: KM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

Monday October 18, 10:36 pm Eastern Time BancBoston sees profit forecasts falling on Dell NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Earnings estimates are poised to fall in the wake of Dell Computer Corp.'s (NasdaqNM:DELL - news) warning on Monday that the computer maker's third-quarter profit margins would be hurt by a spike in key component prices, an analyst said. BancBoston Robertson Stephens analyst Dan Niles said Wall Street's consensus forecast for Dell's third quarter ending later this month would ''probably have to come down a penny or two'' to reflect the impact of the lower profit margin outlook. The analyst consensus prior to Dell's warning was for the company to post earnings per share of 20 cents, compared with 14 cents in the year-ago October quarter, according to First Call/Thomson Financial, which surveys broker estimates. Niles said he expected to trade down $3 to $4 on Tuesday ''and it could go lower,'' from Monday's closing price of $41.32, which was itself down $1- during regular trading from Friday's closing stock price. Niles said he was alone among brokerage analysts in predicting Dell's troubles. He downgraded the stock Oct. 1 and cut earnings estimates for its fiscal year ending in January 2000 to reflect the threat of a rapid price rise in computer memory chips used to power Dell PCs and those of other PC makers. He said he had reiterated his comments to clients during a morning conference call early Monday, but was unaware that Dell would be making any specific warning on its quarterly outlook. At the time of his downgrade, Niles cut his earnings forecast for the current fiscal year to 74 cents from 77 cents previously and downgraded the stock's rating to long-term attractive from his prior buy recommendation. The analyst consensus remains at 76 cent per share ahead of the warning. Noting one strategy announced by Dell to combat the rising price of computer memory was to encourage customers to buy machines using less memory, Niles warned this ''may backfire on them.'' ''People buy from Dell to get the biggest, fastest, latest machines,'' Niles said. ''Customers may turn elsewhere'' he said of the stop-gap plan. ''We will have to see what happens with demand if that is their strategy.'' He said Dell's warning was likely to add fuel to concerns over earnings reports from International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news) -- due to release results on Wednesday -- and from Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ - news), due to report next week. Other analysts said they were preparing notes to clients but declined to comment immediately on the Dell announcement.