Dell? Disappoint? Those are words that you don't see together too often, but Dell Computer (NASDAQ:DELL) revealed on Monday that it will be missing its third-quarter projections. The company now sees earnings for its fiscal third quarter coming in at $0.39 per share on revenues of roughly $13.9 billion. The profit figure is at the low end of the company's initial range, but the company had also originally expected its top line to come in no lower than $14.1 billion.
So it could be worse. At least if you miss on top instead of the bottom, investors can boast that net margins clocked in higher than expected. Unfortunately, Wall Street isn't so forgiving. Dell cites weakness stateside and in the U.K. for the shortcoming. That's the kind of surprise that leads data-munching analysts to temper future expectations.
It's a shame, because Dell has traditionally been the one box maker that you can count on to buck the cyclical malaise. Companies like Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), Gateway (NYSE:GTW), and Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL) have had their share of ups and downs. Some, like IBM (NYSE:IBM), have just found that the grass is greener on the other side of the box business. Dell has persevered through thick and thin.
Then again, it's not as if Dell's shares have been setting the world on fire lately. The stock has actually underperformed the market since being singled out in Motley Fool Stock Advisor nearly two years ago.
In a throwback fashion sense, Dell is sporting a mullet: short on top, long in the back. The same "light revenues" comb-over haunted it over the summer, with its fiscal second-quarter report coming up weak in sales but just fine on the bottom line. Sooner or later, that's going to be a problem, as those healthy margin accolades become accusations of managing earnings. Dell is so much better than that. Let's hope it can steer itself back into all-weather immortality.
A trip to the barber wouldn't hurt, either.
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Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz works on an HP desktop through a Dell monitor. However, he does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy. He is also part of the Rule Breakersnewsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.
