Dell, Inc. (DELL)

I couldn't help but notice Dell's current one star CAPS rating and wondered if this might be another nice underperform call I could add to my CAPS pick list.

But what's the reason for the one star rating? Horrid balance sheet? Well, no. Dell's balance sheet looks pretty darn good. Cratering earnings? Uh, not really - Dell's earnings grew quite nicely over the past couple/few fiscal years. Declining revenues? Nope. Trouble with cash flow? Well, no again - Dell still generates a rather healthy amount of the all-mighty greenback.

The next thing I noticed was that some of what I consider to be the brightest minds in Fooldom were lining up, not to short Dell, but to call outperform. Hmmm....

CAPS rating a contrarian indicator? Well, in the case of Dell, it sure looks that way to me.

I'm not entirely sold on this business, but the valuation has become pretty damn attractive.

Dell continues the slide into oblivion. Moving away from their roots as a direct sales model is going to be a complete disaster. Focus. The key to success would be for them to focus on what made them successful to begin with --- direct sales. They also need to fix their customer service as it is horrible. Their pricing is gimicky.

Dell has really become a terrible company. Remember, turnarounds rarely turn around in the words of Buffet.

New 52 week low coming soon!

I am a technology consultant. DELL did fall off over the past few years. Now my firm started selling DELLs with north american tech support only. Its fantastic. Their new PCs are nice, they have a tablet now, and their monitors are still king. HP's indian support is not much better. HP is also more expensive. With the consumer slowing, DELL will cake it because their PCs are soooo much cheaper on the average.

DELL is going to become the dominant player in the game with the weak economy. IBM is too expensive and not mainstream. HP is too expensive and support is not fantastic either. Apple is a fad.

I am opening a position pre market open because the stock is getting CRUSHED after hours. I believe that with their new expansion plan, Michael Dell back at the helm, and them realizing that their cost cutting plan didn't show to well for their numbers, Dell will once again return to the $26-$28 range.

Former employee who believes the company has already seen its best days.

How many cheap computers can the world really hold? They've got to make a play in the high end (no, they really haven't) and improve their capacity utilization.

Laptops are the future & Dell finally realizes this. Their made-to-order business model gives them much needed flexibility in times like these. And Dell's competitive laptop prices gives them an edge over HP and places them polar opposite of Apple's expensive MacBooks. Barring cultural difficulties in selling items over the phone/online, Dell is in a good position to expand international sales. It's not like new businesses in developing nations are going call Apple.

Pure and simple, this is a valuation play. Sure, their customer service sucks, and they've been distracted trying to break into consumer electronics, but DELL is priced cheaper than at any time since 1997. Come on, did they decide to go brain-dead all of a sudden? The jury is out that they will get back to their former wonder years, but cheap is cheap.

Dell has done much to help them selves. The biggest thing that they have done recently is to start carrying AMD processors, which will bring many new AMD loyal customers to their site, rather than steering them away. The Pentium only option they had before held back many people that I know from ordering from them. Many people are loyal to one brand or the other, so they gained a wider client base by doing this. Their computers are also very affordable, and can be financed. Many new and returning customers look at this, (unless they have a few thousand dollars just lying around).

Dell is suffering because its primary advantage, cost efficiency, has largely disappeared. Additionally, the market has changed where pure performance is less of an issue and design/lifestyle is more important.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a Dell if you held a gun to my head and forced me into it. I think their product is subpar compared to their competition. But...that's just my opinion. The fact of the matter is, people are buying their products. They are more attracted to the price point than they are to the quality of the machine, and that's why they're buying Dells. The company is run well and they have solid fundamentals. Even though I wouldn't buy their computers, I would buy their stock.

Dell is terminally ill. It was always a one pony show, and now it cannot compete at its own game.

The Admiral recommended it, and I thought I should have at least one value play in the mix! Seriously, though, tech is down across the board, Dell has a good business model (even if, and especially because, it's a commoditized product), and expansion into foreign markets will likely offer some growth potential. Returns won't be spectacular but, at these prices, they are a pretty good bet.

Products seem to be pushing their "looks" more than their abilitites as of late. Their business model for making PCs vaulted them to the top of their industry, but now they need a business model that will vault their sales volume as well.

Hard to have imagined that Dell could have been purchased again at this price. Of course, there is a reason that this opportunity presents itself as the company has had some short term sputtering which creates questions about future prospects. However, I believe that a return to any growth in cash flow and earnings in the future will produce a good return from this price. I don't know if this will work out to a home run, but with the balance sheet this company sports, I like the risk vs return proposition.

Dell seems to have weathered the battery recall with a fast, honest response. Vista is on the horizon, requiring significant hardware upgrades. Accounting irregularities? Stay tuned, but they'll weather that. Acquisition of Alienware positions them well in performance machines, permitting them to focus on the office and workaday home machines in the regular Dell line.

Dell is headed for $10. Sorry to say that since I live near Michael Dell and he and Susan are nice, generous people - but that does not change the fact that Dell's delivery system stinks with today's transportation costs.
Dell computers are made with the cheapest components and the service is, bar none, the worse.

I bought two for my kids at Christmas, one worked one made a heck of a noise. Took two months talking to people in Malaysia who had me changing out hard drives, reloading software, etc. over and over until I finally told them I was going to ring Michael's gate bell and announce that I was throwing the laptop over the gate and he could take it to work in the morning. The next day they emailed and called me to say they were sending a replacement. I received it and it has 250MB RAM instead of the 500 I purchased.

Lenovo will eat their lunch, dinner, and breakfast.

Buy Put Leaps for Jan '08 !

i feel they are undervalued and somewhat hammered by the battery recalls. with ms vista coming down the pipe I think we will see some stable performance in the first & second quarter of next year. hooray for msft.