Earnings Preview: Dell

Dell DELL is scheduled to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Tuesday, May 22. Analysts expect the company's earnings to fall 14.5% from a year ago. Heading into the print, Wall Street has consensus earnings estimates of 47 cents per share, down 8 cents from the 55 cents per share DELL reported in the year ago period. The high estimate is $0.52 and the low estimate is $0.38. For the full-year, analysts expect EPS of $2.12. Last year, Dell's revenue came in at $15.02 billion for the quarter. Analysts are expecting that number to decrease by about 0.6% to $14.92 billion this quarter. The high estimate for the quarter is $15.24 billion with a low estimate of $14.46 billion. The total revenue for the year is expected to be about $62.49 billion. After a three-quarter streak of year-over-year profit growth, Dell's profit fell in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year. Nevertheless, over the last four quarters, revenue has increased 0.9% on average year-over-year. After the company releases its Q2 results tomorrow, traders may want to keep an eye on derivative stocks that could move in sympathy with DELL. These include Apple AAPL, Hewlett- Packard HPQ, Silicon Graphics International SGI, and Super Micro Computer SMCI.