2-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: Dell? (DELL)

2-Star Stocks Poised to Plunge: Dell?

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, computer giant Dell (Nasdaq: DELL ) has received a distressing two-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Dell's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Dell facts

Headquarters (Founded)	Round Rock, Texas (1984)
Market Cap	$32.4 billion
Industry	Computer hardware
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$61.7 billion
Management	Founder/Chairman/CEO Michael Dell CFO Brian Gladden
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	37.8%
Cash/Debt	$13.8 billion / $8.3 billion
Competitors	Hewlett-Packard IBM Lenovo Group

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 29% of the 5,677 members who have rated Dell believe the stock will underperform the S&P 500 going forward.

A couple of months ago, one of those Fools, NJ7, offered some customer insight into Dell bear case:

I was scared away to HP by Dell's sub optimal quality, general boringness, and its horrible, horrible customer service. To this day, when I want to slam bad customer service, I say to a friend "it was as bad as Dell." They made you wait for hours to even talk to a human being and would force you to repeat all the tests you had already done. ... Now I do think [Dell's]offerings are improving, and Alienware was a good acquisition. But their customer care remains horrendous and that will prevent more customer loyalty from developing.

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The Steve Jobs Betrayal
You may already know that in the final year of his life, Jobs revealed a stunning betrayal — and told his biographer, "I will spend my last dying breath... and every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong." What was it that made Jobs so irate — and why could it make a few in-the-know investors some major profits over the coming months and years?

Enter your email address below to find out what made Jobs so enraged!

Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended writing covered calls in Dell. The Fool owns shares of IBM. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

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