Bad news. Canary in a coal mine. With deceleration on GDP, slowing consumer sales, and being late in the business cycle, that is just sad. Expect the price war between INTEL and AMD to just heat up further.
And the point in the article you posted the other day - about excess liquidity, and not economic fundamentals, driving the indices - was spot on. If we get any fed hikes at all, the markets will crumble. The markets are overbought and can't handle bond yield increases.
No, they didnt beat by a penny. They did some fancy accounting to push it just over the analysts line. See how the price drops. Sorry Intel, we are not all fooled by fancy accounting.
i say these earnings results are relatively neutral. intc, msft, etc. will all continue their ascent on vista momentum --- unless of course management manages to downplay Vista's impact on this earnings call. I'll be buying tommorow morning.
I wouldn't touch either chip company (INTC or AMD) right now. Price war is good for consumers but bad for stocks. Who can hold at longer during the price war will win in the end. My bets are on INTC.
Profits fell 40%. http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/techsemis/10332752.html By Alexei Oreskovic TheStreet.com Staff Reporter 1/16/2007 4:27 PM EST Intel's (INTC - news - Cramer's Take) profit plunged 40% in the fourth quarter, but the chipmaker's results nonetheless came in ahead of Wall Street's lackluster expectations. Intel said sales for the three months ended Dec. 30 totaled $9.7 billion -- at the top of the company's guided range of $9.1 billion and $9.7 billion in revenue. Net income was $1.5 billion, or 26 cents a share, compared to the $2.5 billion, or 40 cents a share, profit that Intel posted a year ago this time. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for EPS of 25 cents on sales of $9.45 billion. Intel said it had a gross margin level of 49.6%, in line with its guidance of 50% gross margin, plus or minus a couple of points. The company said average selling prices of its microprocessors increased in the fourth quarter, even as total unit shipments increased. By contrast, rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - news - Cramer's Take) warned the Street last week that unit shipments were up in the quarter but that average selling prices declined significantly. But Intel's profit margins appeared stuck in the mud for the foreseeable future. The company projected gross margin of 49%, plus or minus a couple of points in the current quarter and 50% gross margin for 2007. Those margin levels are down considerable from the 55% to 60% levels the company regularly notched up before the recent price war with AMD. Shares of Intel were recently off 23 cents, or 1%, to $22.07 in extended trading. The stock had climbed 0.8% during the regular session.
Who cares about them anyway? Look SAP warned, AMD warned, SYMC warned etc etc. And guess what indexes are going to the new highs.