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Bear of the Day: Dell Technologies (DELL)

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The AI buzz may be booming, but not every tech company is enjoying the ride. Case in point: Dell Technologies (DELL - Free Report) . While NVIDIA and others in the space are making headlines for triple-digit returns, Dell is feeling the weight of a more traditional IT business struggling to keep up with rapidly shifting market dynamics.

There’s no denying Dell’s legacy or its role in building the modern computing landscape. But right now, the numbers, and the analysts, aren’t on its side. The company is facing margin pressure, uneven demand, and increasingly fierce competition in both consumer and enterprise markets.

The core of our Zacks Rank system is earnings estimate revisions, and unfortunately for Dell ((DELL - Free Report) ), they’re going in the wrong direction. Over the past 30 days, five analysts have cut their earnings estimates for the current quarter, next quarter, and full year. That’s a serious red flag, and exactly why Dell has landed in the dreaded Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) category.

Current year EPS estimates have fallen from $9.36 to $8.90, a steep drop that reflects caution from the analyst community. And while revenue growth in infrastructure solutions (especially servers) has helped cushion the blow somewhat, weak PC demand and tighter corporate IT budgets are weighing on results.

Dell has long operated on thin margins, especially in its PC business. Now that component prices are stabilizing and demand is no longer surging, Dell is losing the pricing power it briefly enjoyed post-COVID. Meanwhile, the AI infrastructure race is capital intensive, and Dell’s approach, centered more on reselling NVIDIA’s hardware than building its own proprietary stack, hasn’t given it the same premium investors are awarding others in the AI space.

The company’s commercial business is also vulnerable to macroeconomic tightening. Enterprise spending is slowing as companies reassess budgets, and Dell’s heavy exposure to corporate IT makes it especially sensitive to that trend.

Dell Technologies is a titan in tech, but in today’s market, legacy hardware isn’t where the growth is. With analysts cutting estimates, earnings expected to decline, and fundamental challenges ahead, it’s tough to make a bullish case right now.

Dell is in the Computer – Micro Computers industry which ranks in the Bottom 14% of our Zacks Industry Rank. Within its industry, there are no stocks which are in the good graces of our Zacks Rank. However, there are two Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stocks in that business. These include Apple (APPL) and Lenovo (LNVGY).


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