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

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (105925)	3/1/1999 12:22:00 PM
From: Kenneth Aird	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

For my sake I hope HPs growth does not remain 1% for long. I have a significant part of my 401K in HWP at $78, thanks to following the moves of James Cramer (which I will never do again). HP still has a huge annuity in laser and inkjet printer supply sales with very nice margins. They got creamed in the test and measurement business, another one with very high gross margins, when the semiconductor test business fell off a cliff. By most accounts that business is coming back quickly, and much of Asia seems to be turning the corner. Also, last I looked, HWP had a trailing PE of about 23.5. During the October crash, my HWP did not suffer much because it was already pre-crashed. HP also does a respectable business in high end Unix servers, which are doing quite well due to the need for mission critical databases to serve millions of internet customers. If HP has a weak spot, it is PCs, where Dell seems to be eating its lunch along with that of all the other indirect box makers. It remains to be seen whether HP can make a graceful exit from that business as they did from disk drives last year. So far HP management seems to be trying valiantly to duke it out with Dell, believing that you cannot be in the computer business and not make PCs. BTW, HP laptops and Dell laptops are manufactured by the same company in Taiwan. The most significant difference between the two companies may be the age of their CEOs, one of whom is not set to retire in 3 years. None of the above makes HP stock hold a candle to Dell stock, but I have limited choices in my 401K. The irony is that I was in cash except for some restricted stock purchase plan shares when HWP was doubling a few years ago. I had borrowed against my 401K to pay cash for a house and did not want to risk the capital that was securing my loan in the market. Now I keep an 80% mortgage on a much more expensive house so we can invest in Dell. You can't say I don't learn from my mistakes :) The above are my personal opinions and in no way reflect the views of Hewlett-Packard Company, my employer. Ken Aird