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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PCSS who wrote (45724)	1/27/1999 4:55:00 PM
From: Roads End	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

Michael...The last trade to go through on the NYSE was 47 1/16. My bet is that what the final settlement will show, darn it. Haven't seen this posted yet. $0.05 of earnings was from a benefit in reduced tax rates. Steve [B] Compaq shares dn after Q4 earnings beat consensus but don't excite [.21760] By Andrew Simons, Bridge News San Francisco--Jan 27--Though Compaq announced consensus-beating earnings this morning, Wall Street analysts were unexcited by the results. After opening up more than 3%, the shares fell back by midmorning and have been down about 1% much of the day. * * * "The earnings were not much of a surprise," said David Wu of ABN Amro Inc. Wu said the only news that came out of Compaq's conference call with analysts this morning was that the company benefited to the tune of 5 cents per share from a significantly lower tax rate. Compaq's results didn't impress lay investors either, as gauged by an online discussion today on the Motleyfool.com Web site. There, 1 person speculated that Compaq's announcement Tuesday that it would spin off its AltaVista search engine was aimed at putting a brighter face on today's lackluster earnings news. Compaq announced sales of $10.9 billion for the fourth quarter, an increase of 48% compared with sales reported for the fourth-quarter 1997. After-tax profits for the quarter were $758 million or 43c per share, beating Street estimates of 37c per share. Gross margins improved by a point and a half from the third quarter to 26.4%. Operating expenses declined sequentially both in absolute dollars and as a percent of revenue, ending the quarter at 18% versus 23% for the third quarter. Cash remained was at $4.1 billion, while inventory turns increased to 15.9 versus the 12.4 reported in the third quarter, and days sales outstanding improved by 2 days to 56. Return on invested capital grew from 7.5% reported in the third quarter to 38.6%. End Bridge News, tel: (415) 835-7647 Send comments to Internet address: equity@bridge.com [symbols:US;CPQ] Jan-27-1999 11:54 GMT Symbols: US;CPQ Source [B] BridgeNews Global Markets Categories: MST/GEO/US MST/IND/TEC/PC MST/INDTOPIC/EARN MST/INDTOPIC/STOCK CAP/STOCKS CAP/INDEX MR/NEWS