Storage heavyweight EMC
Can the storage leader keep up its streak? When it comes to the Street's consensus estimates, the company looks like it has a pretty good shot. For the first quarter, analysts are looking for revenue of $5.1 billion, which is expected to give way to $0.36 in earnings per share. Those forecasts represent year-over-year growth of 11% and 16%, respectively.
EMC Revenues data by YCharts.
Heading into the report, Topeka Capital's Brian White is reiterating a "buy" rating and $38 price target on the stock, saying the company's product portfolio has "never been stronger" and that its momentum should keep running. White also expects EMC's majority ownership of virtualization specialist VMWare
It looks like the shorts are bracing themselves for a solid quarter, as they've been scrambling to cover their bearish positions for the past couple of months. This is how EMC's short interest has changed on each of these settlement dates.
Metric |
Feb. 15 |
Feb. 29 |
March 15 |
March 30 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Short interest (shares) | 130.9 million | 100.4 million | 51.4 million | 37.5 million |
Short interest (% of outstanding) | 6.3% | 4.8% | 2.5% | 1.8% |
Source: Nasdaq.com
If EMC puts up figures in line with expectations, it would represent the ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit top-line and bottom-line gains.
Rival IBM
EMC also recently announced VFCache in a direct shot at Fusion-io
The need for data storage won't be subsiding anytime soon as data continues to migrate toward the cloud, and I'm expecting that to show up in EMC's bottom line.
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