Dell Technologies slumps 10% as Wall Street comes to defense – Seeking Alpha

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Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) shares fell sharply on Friday after the IT provider posted fourth-quarter results that missed expectations, prompting some defense from Wall Street.

Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring, who cut the firm’s price target to $66 from $68, noted that the company offered a “solid” outlook for its products, but the supply chain hurt the fourth quarter.

“Component and logistics headwinds intensified towards the end of the Jan Q, which coupled with higher taxes, resulted in an F4Q operating profit and EPS miss,” Woodring wrote in the note. “While the demand backdrop remains solid, supply chain issues bring about additional challenges in FY23.”

In addition, Woodring added noted that the supply chain is still “challenging,” as the PC backlog is expected to increase sequentially from the fourth-quarter to the first-quarter and the Infrastructure Solutions Group backlog should remain “elevated” through the first-half of 2023.

On Thursday, the Michael Dell-led company said it earned $1.72 per share on $28 billion in revenue during the period. A consensus of Wall Street analysts were expecting Dell to earn $1.95 per share on $27.52 billion in revenue.

Of the company’s two units, Client Solutions Group generated $17.3 billion in revenue, up 26% year-over-year. Operating income for the unit was $1.2 billion. Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group delivered $9.2 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, up 3% year-over-year. Operating income was $1.1 billion.

Dell shares fell slightly more than 10% to $49.80 in early trading on Friday.

Separately on Thursday, Dell said it would starting paying a quarterly dividend of 33 cents per share, which Woodring said added to a capital return program that is “in-line with expectations.”

Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi called the fourth-quarter results “disappointing,” but profit was hurt by roughly $300 million due to expedited costs, largely due to airfreight to get components and finished goods to where they needed to be, an increase of six times over the past year.

The analyst added that 2023 should be “solid” as the firm increased its revenues for next year modestly and said investors should add to their positions on any pullback in the stock.

Earlier this week, research firm Canalys showed that Dell owned 16.8% of the PC market in 2021, good for second-place, behind only HP.

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