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

To: Dorine Essey who wrote (150230)	1/4/2000 10:30:00 AM
From: OLDTRADER	Respond to of 176387

RE:orine-Yeah you have some respect for doing this for 41 years--and with hundreds of clients-God what a way to have spent my life!So many ingrats.wbm

To: Dorine Essey who wrote (150230)	1/4/2000 10:36:00 AM
From: Tom G	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

Here is the article, this Fortuna does this to us all the time. Funny about the timing of this after yesterday's recommendation of Dogpaq: RESEARCH ALERT - Merrill cautions on Dell Q4 NEW YORK, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Dell Computer Corp. faces difficulty managing profit margins amid high component costs during its current quarter ending later this month, posing risk to its capacity to meet expectations, a Merrill Lynch analyst said on Tuesday. -- Merrill's Steve Fortuna said in a research note that he believed that the computer maker was well-positioned for long-term growth but that recent share price gains should not be construed as meaning "Q4 (fourth quarter) is without risk." -- Shares of Dell dropped 2-11/16 to 48-3/16 in active trading near the opening on the Nasdaq stock market, later improving to 49. The stock had climbed significantly ahead of the holidays from levels just above 40 on December 13. -- "Dell shares have risen over the past couple of weeks for no apparent reason, in our view," the analyst said. -- In the note, entitled "Q4 still lacks clarity," Fortuna also cited some positives for Dell, noting that the company was benefiting from a modest decline in computer memory prices, more displays, and better Intel chip supplies. Also, Year 2000 concerns appeared to have little impact on Dell, he said. -- "We believe the quarter rests entirely on how well the company can fine tune its customer segment pricing so as to rebuild gross margins without materially impacting the top-line," Fortuna wrote. -- He said Dell management had one of two options. One is to be less aggressive on PC pricing in order to shore up profitability and risk missing a possible fiscal first quarter buying boom as Microsoft releases its Windows 2000 system. -- The second option would be to follow the company's normal pricing policy, but this would likely prevent the company from meeting Wall Street's current fourth quarter consensus earnings estimate for Dell, he said. -- If the company were to miss meeting fourth quarter expectations, it most likely would be due to lower gross margins rather than failure to meet revenue growth estimates. Fortuna has estimated per share earnings of 20 cents for Dell's fourth quarter ending later in January, which is a penny below the 21 cent consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call. ((-- Eric Auchard, New York newsdesk, 212-859-1840))