EMC
For the fourth quarter, EMC reported sales of $4 billion, which is a 5% improvement over last year's $3.8 billion. Excluding one-time restructuring charges and the like, EMC's net income grew 7% over last year, and operating cash flow jumped 9% any way you cut it. Through the magic of modern accounting, you can fudge income figures to some degree. It's much harder to play games with the cash account, you know.
So from a Foolish perspective, the data storage specialist did everything right this time. The top line improved despite a tough environment that brought titans of the computing industry like Microsoft
The company's strength largely stems from fast-growing virtual server expert VMware
All EMC ever does is to meet or beat analyst guesstimates quarter by quarter while Mr. Market watches the stock with a suspicious eye. Despite what I consider good news, EMC is down nearly 2% today while the S&P 500 is trending up. A stock that cost you about 17 times trailing free cash flow a year ago now goes for a mere 8.5 times cash flow
While growth is hard to come by when you're as big as EMC, it's the very definition of steady-as-she-goes safety. Buy hypergrowth stocks like salesforce.com
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