Dude, It’s a Disaster

Earnings from the struggling Dell will hit the Street Thursday. As the stock settles back to its 2006 lows one year after Michael Dell returned as CEO, are things beginning to look any better?

CNBC’s Jim Goldman reported that the overly pessimistic expectations about Dell earnings make a “beat and raise” quarter likely. The quarter will show if the company, whose stock is down 15% so far in 2008, is making inroads against PC king Hewlett-Packard and if its strategy of moving toward high-end products is working.

Pete Najarian expects the quarter to be impressive, especially after it announced that $10 billion buyback in December (a buyback that Jeff Macke reminds took so long because the company needed time to get its books in order). IBM , H-P and Dell are all great, Pete said. And Dell is the cheapest of the three.

Michael Dell still needs to show investors that he can orchestrate a real turnaround as far as Jeff Macke is concerned. Jeff has a wait-and-see attitude toward Dell and would rather just buy H-P.

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