Our Business News

SAN FRANCISCO Tech stocks started the week on an upbeat note Monday, with Dell Inc. among the top gainers. Dell shares rose almost 9%, to $ 10.48, after Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope raised his rating on the computer maker to buy from sell. Other gains came from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. , Apple Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. . The Nasdaq Composite Index rose more than 18 points to [...]

Shares of Dell (DELL) leaped on Monday after the computer maker was upgraded to “buy” from “sell” by Goldman Sachs (GS). While Goldman noted the risks of a still-depressed PC market, its analysts said they believe sentiment and expectations could tilt positive in 2013. Goldman set a new 12-month price target on Dell of $ 13 from an earlier $ 9. Goldman said it still believes Dell faces “secular challenges” due to its exposure to PCs and estimates that PC demand weakness will “remain severe in the near term.”  Shares of Dell are down about 38% from a year ago [...]

FRANKFURT Analysts at Goldman Sachs upgraded personal-computer maker Dell Inc. to buy from sell on Monday, citing indications that Goldman’s “long-held secular concerns have become consensus.” In a note, Goldman analysts said their bullish view is based on three factors: sentiment and expectations could begin to tilt positively in 2013; a 28% drop from peak in consensus expectations for fiscal 2014 has produced a positive risk/reward for the stock; and the “downside buffer” provided by Dell’s net cash balance. Goldman raised its 12-month target price to $ 13 from $ [...]

Consumer electronics giant Sharp is on the hunt for a U.S. partner and has approached Dell, among others, about an equity stake, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The Japanese company has offered an equity stake to Dell (DELL) and is discussing a similar offer for Intel (INTC) as its talks with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry slow ahead of the March deadline, according to the report. A Dell spokesperson said the Round Rock, Texas-based company does not comment “on rumor and speculation.” An Intel spokesperson echoed similar comments, while Sharp did not immediately respond. [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Dell Inc. shares fell more than 5%, to a 52-week-low of $ 9.05, shortly after trading began Friday in the wake of the PC company’s disappointing quarterly earnings report. Late Thursday, Dell reported a fiscal third-quarter profit of $ 475 million, or 27 cents a share, compared with earnings of $ 893 million, or 49 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Dell’s sales also declined by 11%, to $ 13.7 billion. Excluding one-time items, Dell would have earned 39 cents a share, while analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast the company to earn 40 cents a share, [...]

NEW YORK Dell Inc. said Friday it’ll pay an undisclosed sum to buy Santa Clara, Calif.-based Gale Technologies, a provider of infrastructure automation solutions. Dell also said it would form a new division called Enterprise Systems & Solutions to focus on the delivery of enterprise workload solutions. Dell shares fell 2.5% in premarket trades after the company posted a 47% drop in fiscal third-quarter profit to $ 475 million, or 27 cents a share on lower personal computer sales dropped and its other business units showed weakness.

SAN FRANCISCO Dell Inc. said Thursday that earnings slid by 47% in its third fiscal quarter, as PC sales plunged and many of its other business units showed weakness as well. For the quarter ended Nov. 2, Dell reported net income of $ 475 million, or 27 cents a share, compared to net income of $ 893 million, or 49 cents a share, for the same period last year. Adjusted earnings came in at 39 cents a share for the recent period. Revenue fell nearly 11% to $ 13.7 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of 40 cents a share on [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Dell Inc’s profit slid 47 percent, hurt by lower PC sales and weaker demand from large corporations, but the No. 3 personal computer maker said it expects revenue to grow as much as 5 percent in the current quarter. Dell shares fell 2.3 percent in after-hours trade. The company, once the world’s top PC maker and a pioneer in computer supply chain management, is struggling to defend its market share against Asian rivals like Lenovo. It is trying to bolster growth by focusing on products and services to corporations. The company founded by Chief Executive Michael Dell warned [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Dell Inc reported revenue that was slightly lower than Wall Street expectations for the third quarter but said it expects revenue to grow 2 to 5 percent in the fourth quarter. The world’s No. 3 maker of personal computers said revenue in its fiscal third quarter fell 14.6 percent to $ 13.7 billion, slightly lower than the average analyst estimate of $ 13.89 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Dell’s shares rose 2.5 percent in after market trading following the release of the results. (Reporting By Poornima Gupta; Editing by PM Berlowitz)

SAN FRANCISCO Shares of Hewlett-Packard, Dell Inc. and Intel Corp each hit a new 52-week low on Wednesday as an industry report painted a grim picture for the PC market. The three companies are dominant players in the PC market, which IHS projected will post an annual decline in shipments for the first time in 11 years. PC shipments will total 349 million units this year, down 1.2% from 2011, according to IHS. “There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market,” IHS analyst Craig Stice said in [...]