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

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (48691)	2/18/1999 8:33:00 AM
From: Kenya AA	Respond to of 97611

El: Well, I guess maybe you should have wished me luck yesterday. K From Greenberg's column today .... Dinging Dell -- or for those who are not yet Delled out: Last March, Janus Twenty fund's Scott Schoelzel was quoted here explaining why he liked Dell (DELL:Nasdaq), which then was trading at around 30. Putting his money where his mouth is, Janus Twenty became one of Dell's largest holders. What's Schoelzel saying now? Yesterday he told me: "Needless to say, Dell kind of blew this quarter (by their own admission). The situation is very, very confusing and we have lots of differing opinions, even within our own shop. "Speaking only for myself, I am pleasantly surprised the stock is only down 8. I expected more pain. I also expect the company to be in repurchasing shares on Friday [after a 48-hour SEC blackout following earnings] and this will probably help stabilize the situation a little bit. "As for the fundamentals, it's controversial, but I believe they signed a number of corporate accounts in November and December, and they expected/projected certain volumes to ship to those customers in January. Simultaneously, they decided to keep pricing firm at the start of the new year, believing they had a pretty good read on the quarter (which is why gross margins were higher than most expected). Then, as January progressed (third week), it was clear that they had simply misjudged the early ramp rate of some of their newer corporate customers and it was too late to go back and lower prices, thus stimulating the incremental demand necessary to make the revenue line for the quarter. "Lot of 'ifs' and conjecture but I think this is accurate. They know they got off their game and I hope this reintensifies the effort out of Austin. I still believe the model is systemically advantaged vs. their competitors (six days of inventory vs. Compaq's (CPQ:NYSE) 56, channel included) and they still grew units in excess of 50% for something like the 11th straight quarter! "Nevertheless, the bears will have plenty to chew on for a while. Still a good company, good management, but probably not a great stock ... for a while." Thanks, Scott. (Wouldn't say whether he has been a buyer, a seller or neither.) Dell won't comment on a possible stock repurchase, and says the rest of Schoelzel's comments are consistent with what it's been saying.

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (48691)	2/18/1999 9:08:00 AM
From: rupert1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

El: A lot of companies announce a buyback programme at critical times, for psychological reasons, and never carry it out. I understand that DELL already has a buy-back programme authorised on the books but has not been using it. It will need to buy back an awful lot if it wants to support an unsupportable p/e ratio. I think CPQ already has buy-back authorisation. As I understand it, the main purpose was to replace shares given away as compensation to employees. Does anybody know if the programme was activated and whether it has been exhausted.

To: Elwood P. Dowd who wrote (48691)	2/19/1999 7:35:00 PM
From: tonyt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 97611

>Go to the rear of the class (henry), you get an "F" in Spamming 101!!! >jajajajaja El You're right, this guy is spamming SI left and right. "There's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam, tomato and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; or lobster thermador ecrovets with a bournaise sause, served in the purple salm Mr. Bunor with chalots and overshies, garnished with truffle pate, brandy, a fried egg on top and *spam*."