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

To: John Hauser who wrote (127754)	5/21/1999 6:44:00 PM
From: arthur pritchard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

john: does any other stock,really catch your attention?<eom>

To: John Hauser who wrote (127754)	5/22/1999 2:49:00 PM
From: Tunica Albuginea	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 176387

John Hauser: Barrons/A.Abelson on Dell; 5/22/99: interactive.wsj.com "Analysts can be bad enough. But when you're looking for advice on stocks, economists can be absolute murder -- which, of course, never stopped any, at least of the Wall Street persuasion, from proffering it. But, the more astute among them can spot a trend with quite meaningful investment implications. Certainly among the more astute practitioners of that dubious trade is Michael Niemira, of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. And a recent commentary of his, entitled "Something Does Not Compute," has quite meaningfully bearish implications for computer makers, chip producers and high tech in general. Michael notes that Commerce Department figures show that final sales of computers, in current dollars, fell by nearly $6 billion, or at an annual rate of 19.4%, in the first quarter. That, he points out, was the first decline since the December quarter of '97 and the biggest quarterly drop since Commerce started keeping track back in '87. Further, it was a nondiscriminatory decline, with both foreign and domestic demand making baleful contributions. Even in "real" terms, after making allowance for the downward spiral of computer prices, Michael observes, the trend is bleak. Real final sales of computers in January-March were up a miserly 3.5% annual rate. A startling falloff from the 46.6% yearly clip at which they grew in the fourth quarter of '98, the first time computer sales have risen in only single digits since '94, and way off the 42.9% yearly rise they've averaged in the past five years. To Michael, that suggests that "America's big technology upgrade may be largely behind us," along with the best part of our productivity gains and maybe the unprecedented capital investment boom. To us, that says "caveat emptor" to fanciers of stocks like Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and the rest of that splendid gang. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TA