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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (25812)	2/7/1998 8:11:00 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Our office is buying more of those darned things and they haven't lowered their prices like they should've. Don't underestimate "brain dead" purchases from the government folks who think they're getting a good deal from Gateway, because they shop around -- once every two or three years. Dumb, dumb, dumb ...

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (25812)	2/8/1998 12:47:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

Skeets, On Gateway, it is just the illogicality of their eps that makes me sceptical. First, they had over $100 million in writeoffs from the previous quarter that they, IMHO, weaseled into this quarter's numbers. The biggest shocker is in S&GA Expense. Fred Hickey points this out in his newsletter. Logically, 4th quarter is the largest sales quarter for the year for a home pc retailer. Every year, forever, S&GA expenses rise in that quarter as Gateway pushes for every sale. Makes sense. This year, Gateway also opened 22 of their country stores. You would think that couldn't be done for free. Yet, S&GA expenses declined. You have to believe in Santa Claus to think there wasn't some fudging in that number. Big time! PC sales still suck on a dollar basis. However, MUEI's Christmas does fall in this quarter and it may be less of a disaster than previous or future quarters. And MU will pull there old trick of holding back inventory when they can't sell it for a profit, making their internal number look better. They are using some story they made up about a shortage of test equipment to cover that one this time. Oh, yeah, with everyone pulling in their horns, there is a huge shortage of test equipment. Not for anyone else who ordered, but for Micron. -g- Still, there is no way they can make up for an entire quarter's worth of sub-breakeven DRAM prices. What I expect is for MU to guide analysts down too low, and, then, showing how brilliant management is, beating that new lower standard and claiming that things were bad but are getting better. So, they may guide analysts as low as -50 cents, then, hold inventory, not pay interest, get a slightly better quarter from MUEI, and make a -20 cents. The bulls will go wild. -g- They are such schmucks. But this time, I don't think it will work. You can fool all the bulls most of the time and Grimmy all of the time, but some of these folks manage big money and are tired of excuses. MB