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

To: Lucretius who wrote (42001)	5/14/1998 7:12:00 AM
From: Jerry Miller	Respond to of 176387

"I've said all of this before..." ...and all with an un-welcomed lingering affect. quite like flatulence.

To: Lucretius who wrote (42001)	5/14/1998 7:46:00 AM
From: Boplicity	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

<<I'm heariing that DELL's business is slowing and they are pushing back orders.>> You are being lied to. Worse, you are spreading the lie. Greg

To: Lucretius who wrote (42001)	5/14/1998 12:31:00 PM
From: Meathead	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

LT, your bearish prognostications based on your fastidious "belief system" is quite pathetic. Your statements about what is happening are diametrically incorrect... there is so much proof that they are incorrect that it's purely comical. Chuz is right, youve posted no substance. Do you know how to post a link? If so, then post the links of your previous posts where you outlined your rationale for the immenent crash so I can rip them to shreds. Do you have a valuation model that isn't based solely on PE? It's quite complicated to perform valuation based on many other important factors that are the focus of todays investment climate. Novices and rookies can only grasp price/volume and PE ratios. Now for a little fun. You said: PC sales declines and THE PIE IS SHRINKING. Now that's comedy<gggg>. IDC says the PC market will grow by 13% to 15% for 1998. To help you grasp this concept, here is a little 1st grade math. If 80Million PC's were sold in 1997 then the projection for 1998 is 801.15 or 92Million PC's. Now which is greater, 80M or 92M? Don't answer right away, think about it for a while. The statement their devotion to the highend mkt (big mistake)* Your perception of this issue... big mistake for you as an investor. Compaq agressively went after the sub-zero... that's their profit for 6 mos, sub-zero. HWP competes head on with CPQ in this space... look how nicely their quarter is shaping up<ggg>. Dell focuses on the big profitable piece of pie.... their Q1 results and forward looking statements will speak volumes about how well their strategy continues to work. Entry level PC's will not garner more than 15% of total PC sales for many years to come... how is a mistake to avoid this sliver? Is Toyota and Honda making a big mistake by not competing with the Hyundai Accent in the $8299 new car space? Will the sub 10k automobile begin to dominate the auto market? After all, a 10k car will get you there just as fast and comfortable as a 20k car. Right? Another statement: I'm heariing that DELL's business is slowing and they are pushing back orders You clearly don't understand how PC mfgrs operate. Do you realize how many vendors are on the ASL (approved supplier list) for a given product? Take memory vendors for example. A typical Optiplex will use DIMMs supplied by Hitachi, Samsung, TI, Goldstar and Micron. When Dell pushes back on say Goldstar or Micron, it's generally because of fairly complex quality, cost, quantity, scheduling and logistics issues. All Micron can say is Dell's pushing back orders. Meanwhile, volumes from Samsung increase. Multiply this scenario by the 100's of components on a PCB that aren't single sourced. There are always many vendors you could poll and learn that Dell is pushing back orders. They always have and always will. INTEL IS THE ONLY SINGLE SOURCE SUPPLIER FOR DELL. If Intel says Dell's "total volume orders" are decreasing or flat, then you can worry. The statement: "they're being undercut in price". This is purely an illusion, a temprorary phenomenan due to channel backlog. Older technology systems that Dell aint selling anyway. Corporate customers don't base business relationships on fire sale and liquidation prices which arent sustainable. Dell's competitors need to run close to zero net profit margin to sell leading edge technology systems at price parity. To undercut them, they must go negative for extended periods. That's the beauty of Dell's business model and why their stock is so valuable. Every single PC company except Dell has disappointed. What does this suggest to you? I know, Dell is next because it's in the same business, right? So, here are just a few of the insults you've expected. I don't expect you to believe any of this because explaining the complexities of the PC business to a stock trader is like trying to teach a dog to fly a plane. Cheers MEATHEAD

To: Lucretius who wrote (42001)	5/14/1998 5:14:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 176387

Lucretius, rather than merely echo the comments made by Meathead -- which by the way are all based on fact, not conjecture, I'd like to make a few additional points: Ordinarily, when we speak of fundamental analysis we generally mean either a macro industry view as Meathead has so accurately (and perhaps conservatively) portrayed, or a micro company specific view which I've tried to convey to you. You have responded with a series of non-sequitors (not to mention consistently misspelling the word "fundamental" WHICH IS DRIVING ME NUTS!!!). Dell's sales are increasing, and finding one or two vendors who find that the product isn't experiencing the demand it once had is hardly convincing. "Market internals" is clearly out of bounds for fundamental analysis. I will leave that to those who believe in TA and other forms of sorcery. You say "Your ratios are nice, but that is a backwards look". Well, that's not quite correct. Those ratios tell you how the business operates on a nuts and bolts basis. Those ratios have nothing to do with the price of the stock. They are intended to demonstrate the efficiency with which Dell deploys its resources. That's an example of what I mean by a company specific analysis. Show me another manufacturer/assembler with an asset turnover of 4! Do you even have any concept of how astounding that number is? Do you know what that number implies? I doubt it. Yes, Dell is devoted to the high end. Jim Kelley and Meathead have exhaustively analyzed the wisdom of that decision. At this point I am absolutely convinced it was the wisest choice Dell could make. The economics (here we go with fundamental analysis again) indicated that there is precious little, if any, profit in this market. How else do you explain the precipitous drop in CPQ's gross margin (from around 27% to 18%)? You say "Asia is getting worse (globally economicly speaking)", but fail to show how this will impact Dell. I should point out that Dell's Asian exposure is largely as a buyer of those cheaper goods and should benefit. Companies like Applied Materials, on the other hand, are hurt because Asia is a major customer of their goods. But if you think Asia is getting worse, why are you investing in Japan? I could go on for quite a while, but the pussycat's paws were made for pouncing, not for typing, so I think I'll pounce for awhile. TTFN, CTC