DEC shares were off $3 and heading south as we closed for press last night after the company’s finance vice-president James Osterhoff said that external forecasts of DEC’s fourth quarter’s earnings would appear to be too optimistic due to several factors: our current rate of profitability doesn’t meet the expectations of our investors – or ourselves – the US market continues to be sluggish for us, and certain international markets are experiencing softness – such as the UK where high interest rates are cutting business expansion, he warned in a statement; DEC told Dow Jones that analysts’ estimates for the current quarter were clustered in a range of $1.55, $1.60 to $1.80 per share for the period; in the year-ago fourth quarter to June 30, 1989, DEC did $313.2m net or $2.51 a share, on a turnover of $3,490m.
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