Dell Earnings Preview, Watching Peers & Rivals

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is set to report earnings after the close of trading on Tuesday and the stock has a lot of room for improvement.  Despite issuing a very honorable starting point for a dividend, shares are down 1% at $12.43 ahead of the earnings and the market’s challenge of 52-week highs is not helping Dell holders out as its 52-week trading range is $11.39 to $18.36.

Thomson Reuters has a consensus of $0.45 EPS and revenues are expected to be $14.65 billion.  For the coming quarter, those estimates are $0.48 EPS and $14.86 billion in revenue.

What is interesting is that WhisperNumber.com shows an unofficial whisper number (the better’s consensus) estimate at $0.48 EPS and that is three-cents above the official consensus.  Did they think that when Dell gave its guidance last time that the company was sandbagging the numbers?

We would note that Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) is due to report after the close on Wednesday, although HP already raised its guidance with its restructuring update.  One of Dell’s greatest woes is that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has taken the ‘cool’ out of the PC market and it is still up for debate about whether or not Dell has moved into a post-consumer company yet or not despite recent and ongoing software and IT-services ambitions.

We would note that investors might as well expect a big disparity between GAAP and non-GAAP data based on this notice posted at the shareholder site this morning.

Also keep in mind that Dell shares were closer to $15 at its last earnings report. Shares immediately fell under $13 on the May earnings report (and guidance) and shares hit resistance yesterday and today at $12.50.

JON C. OGG