After-hours traders punished Dell (DELL) stock Thursday, following a weak third quarter earnings report from the technology giant.
Going into the afternoon earnings release, analysts had been expecting to see the company show earnings of 28 cents per share. Actual earnings came in much lower at 23 cents per share.
Shares of the company dipped by over 7% immediately following the announcement, rebounded slightly, but were still down over 6%.
Despite the lower-than-expected earnings with a 54% drop in quarter profit, Michael Dell, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive, stated that demand is improving for the company. He said that demand should continue to grow into the fourth quarter, and could be spurred on by the newly released Windows 7.
Windows 7 has been on the market for about a month now, and so far user reviews have been very positive. As more people drop the fear of the "initial bugs," they will start to buy new computers, and Dell could really benefit from that.
For the same period last year the company had 37 cents per share in earnings.
Closing Bell: When We All Love the PIIGS (NBG, SQNM, PG, ERTS, KO)
Serious Money: Cheapest Stocks List Shrinks from 26 to 21
Chasing Value: Hasbro Earnings Makes My Point
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-20-2009 @ 9:20AM
luvwknd said...
As a 20 year IT veteran this is no surprise to me. First it was IBM thinking they could build up a monopoly and then treat their customers like garbage, then Gateway did almost the same thing and Dell even took the poor customer service to a higher poor level!
Note the missing huge IT company in my post - HP, who I have worked with quite extensively over the years, now HP is poised (and probably already is) the top IT company in the world.
I know I'll never purchase another piece of garbage from Dell, in addition I will not recommend Dell to any corporation or colleagues ever again.
Go check out http://dellhell.net - me and millions of others feel the same way!
Good-Bye Dell, your days are numbered!