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

To: Key West who wrote (46045)	6/2/1998 10:44:00 PM
From: Gabriel008	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

Gene, thanks for the report on the Paine Webber conference. Here's the spin from street.Com below. You'll notice they quoted Howard Schachter - he's the guy that stated in a recent article that DELL would be restating prior earnings. Needless to say his pronouncements should not be taken seriously. Sometimes, when I read or hear certain comments from supposed professionals in the investment community I get this eerie suspicion that these guys were probably nothing more than aluminum siding salesmen in a previous life. They subsequently figured out, with the help of their parole officers, that a 6 week securities course would earn them immediate respect and a brand new market of willing suckers. Scary isn't it? . . Top Stories: Dell Talks Boldly but Some Want More Details By Eric Moskowitz and Kevin Petrie Staff Reporters 6/2/98 2:05 PM ET You have to give Dell (DELL:Nasdaq) credit. Even as the dreaded word commoditization creeps into the PC space, the box maker manages to maintain its robust earnings growth rate while distancing itself from the no-win sub-$1,000 PC market war. "Our only interest in getting into the $1,000 PC market is in our workstations," says Dell CFO Thomas Meredith, setting the standing-room-only crowd in Ballroom B at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel up for the punch line. "That's where we have $1,000 in operating margins -- now that's a much more interesting game." But Dell must still convince the market, as well as the audience here at the PaineWebber Growth & Technology conference, that its future is as bright as its present. The stock, which hit a high of 98 on May 13, has dropped 20% since then and money managers are still unsure what to do next. Meredith's presentation didn't convince some money managers that Dell has the long-term solution. "He's a great promoter, but he didn't address the real industry issues," says hedge fund manager Howard Schachter, of Schachter Capital Management. "We want to know if there is a slowdown in demand, as there has been in other sectors of technology, and if a gradual slowing in the economy will affect Dell." Schachter says he currently has no Dell shares after selling some calls when the stock peaked in the 90s last month. "I don't even know if anything will slow Dell, but it's important to know what might." Schachter says. Meredith did discuss how Dell has been one of the only companies to so far weather Asia's economic woes, racking up 35% year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter. "That region is having negative growth right now," says Meredith, who then asked the crowd whether they knew of a competitor that made money in that "tumultuous region like we had." Meredith also boasted that the company's Austin, Texas, plant can now turn over a computer -- the time it takes to turn a PC out the door after receiving the build-to-order inventory -- in just four hours. The company's average number of days of inventory turnover is eight days, one day above last year's total but still the best in the PC industry, he notes.