There was considerable nervousness on Wall Street last week in the expectation that the company will have some negative things to say about current trading at tomorrow’s meeting, called to announce the four-processor configuration of the VAX 8700 and the symmetrical multi-processor version of the VMS operating system. There is growing concern about how robust the fiscal third quarter figures for the period to the end of March will be, and the shares dipped below the $120 mark at one point during the week for a two-day fall over over five bucks. DEC said that analysts’ estimates for the per-share profit figure ran as low as $2.40 a share and as high as $2.80 a share for the quarter, with most clustered between $2.55 and $2.70 a share, adding that DEC was comfortable with the latter range. Shearson Lehman Hutton analyst Stephen Dube told Dow Jones Professional Investor Report that the shares were suffering from wait-until-next-Tuesday syndrome but that he would be a buyer of the stock ahead of the meeting. His guestimate is at the high end of estimates, going for $2.70 a share for the quarter, against $2.29 a year ago.
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