If the guidance from Dell is positive, that could give us a boost. The question is whether the consumer can continue to hang in long enough for IT (information technology) spending to bottom and pick up. So something good from Dell would be encouraging. |
Juries don't like to say someone is not guilty, if they committed the crime, ... particularly if that crime was violent. |
On the same idea, we would take Wal-Mart, ... They had their analyst meeting last week, and they made an incredible statement. This is a $200 billion company with 1.4 million employees, it's the largest retailer in the world. And they said the opportunities in front of us are bigger than the opportunities that we've already seen. That's an incredible statement. Whether it's true or not, we won't know for another five-to-10 years. But we think just with Super Centers, that they can grow at double-digit rates over the next five-to-10 years. |
Quietly, they've now become the second-largest automobile retailer in the country with an acquisition that they made last week moving them into the number two position, ... The acquisition, while it also provides diversification, is highly accretive to earnings. We were estimating (1999 earnings per share of) $1.50. We're now saying $1.75. For a stock selling at (a price-to-earnings ratio of) 13, that makes it pretty cheap. |
See this chair? They cut of the legs. They have people sit on this for hours. They have them hooded with a hood that smells like feces and vomit. They tie their hands behind them. They tie his legs to the front. It's not just him. They do it all the time. |
Some of the consumer non-durable stocks like Pfizer, Colgate and even General Electric, which is one of the best managed companies in the business, we think look attractive here, |
The headlines are pretty bad right now. You can think of a lot of reasons for the market to sell off. |
The market is reacting to the day-to-day news, which reflects the continuing uncertainty that an economic recovery is on the way. We see that with the numbers this morning. |
The reaction to a disappointing announcement is really quite hostile. If you look at each statistic as it comes in, you can get mesmerized by the details. But if you aggregate them and look at all the numbers that are coming in it looks to us as if still about two out of three [announcements] are coming in above expectations. |
Their PC shipments look like they're going to be up 25 percent, better than expected. Hewlett has had a nice run in here...we think it should be part of a continuing solution for the problem of higher labor costs. The continued substitution of technology for labor will maintain margins. |
They have seven or eight blockbuster drugs, about a billion dollars each, growing at double-digit rates, no patent problems, no pricing problems, ... We think the company can grow north of 20 percent over the next two- to-three years. |
They've had 23 consecutive quarters now of higher sales and earnings. And we think that can continue. We think their growth rate is inherently in the mid-20s. And while the stock is not cheap, on the other hand, it will never get very cheap because there haven't been any mistakes. |
We are not going to allow this kind of evidence. We have a Constitution, we have a Bill of Rights, we have a sense of fairness. That is what we're going to focus on. |
We like Pfizer because it's the largest [drug] company and it's also the fastest growing, ... They have eight of the largest drugs in the world. And they're deeply protected by patents. There's very little in the way pricing requirements here. We think they can grow at double digits for the next two-to-three years. And the stock is in the mid-30s. [We] wouldn't be surprised to see it in the mid-40s a year from now. |
We would look at consumer non-durables, where there is consistency of earnings, visibility of earnings, names like PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive and Safeway, are consumer non-durable names we've been adding to here in this decline, |