DEC did its share price no good at all on Tuesday when it scaled back its guidance to analysts on the likely outturn for its current fiscal third quarter to the end of the month. DEC had been saying that it was comfortable with earnings estimates in the range of $2.55 to $2.70 a share (CI No 883), but on Tuesday said that it was happy with estimates around the $2.50 mark. As for the full year, the company says that it is comfortable with forecasts of about $10.50 a share: in the year to June 1987 it saw net profit of $8.53 a share. DEC stresses that the slight deceleration of its growth rate – it did $2.29 a share this time last year – reflects no more than a pause by users as they await or assess new products – multiprocessor VAXes, MicroVAX 3000s. But that did nothing to pacify Wall Street, which sliced $4 off the DEC price to $120.375.
Content from our partners
