Dell and HPE are two of the strongest hardware names after Super Micro lit a fire under the group. Both look strong, but HPE has the better growth-to-EPS valuation, and its chart is at the apex of its pattern. x.com
Dr. Stoxx
Stock Trader & Author, Oxford DPhil, Trading Education
Dell should benefit from AI data-center construction because builders say almost every new facility runs on Dell or Super Micro servers. Sales rose 49% in the past year to $151B; Dell is 18% below its high and is an easy double from here. x.com
Super Micro's improved expected gross margin kills the bear case, while quarterly revenue near its market cap makes the stock a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It expects first-quarter gross margin of 12%-12.5% versus 10.4%-10.8% guidance and revenue of $18.5B-$19.5B versus $14.5B-$15.5B guidance, against a roughly $21B market cap. Shares should return to all-time highs and, on a Grok-assisted comparison with Dell and HPE, easily top $100; once they break $50, the move to $100 could be fast. … Show more
Hewlett Packard Enterprise's 30% jump looks like dot-com bubble behavior, since the stock trades at about -250 times earnings. Even after a strong earnings report it remains a poor-quality company; Dell and Cisco earned their multiple expansion with great fundamentals and undervaluation. A post the author replies to argues HPE, which sells servers and networking, is a laggard rerating toward the leaders. x.com x.com
Super Micro should benefit as data centers buy the servers that house Nvidia's AI chips. Its quarterly sales outlook rose from $15B to $19B; the stock is 36% below its high and trades at 8x next year's earnings. It is a double from here. x.com x.com
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is a reasonably priced execution story, less levered to memory prices and gross AI spending. Juniper is showing early revenue synergies and some hidden product wins, gross margins look healthy and expanding, and the valuation is in the dirt versus Dell. A flurry of positive Iran headlines from Trump could also lift the whole market. x.com
Dell looks overvalued, trading about seven turns above its historical multiple range and at a premium to many AI semiconductor bottleneck names despite not providing a bottleneck solution. Michael Dell spiking the ball on the latest quarter might mark the top. x.com
Dell and HPE benefit as enterprises accelerate capital spending on AI-ready infrastructure, a near-term tailwind for traditional server vendors. Sustained demand for compute and storage capacity supports both companies' hardware and systems businesses and is driving IT hardware outperformance. x.com
Hewlett Packard Enterprise deserves a higher stock price, even though its growth is not near Dell's. Per @Brian14168136, the stock is still very cheap and would be about $100 at Dell's multiple. x.com
Dell is heavily overearning heading into a two-sigma melt-up, leaving the stock exposed to a reversal. x.com
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a better rerating setup than Dell because last year's Juniper acquisition adds networking, which deserves higher multiples than hardware, as Arista's do, and can improve the quality and margin mix of the whole business. Dell still has the stronger AI-server earnings engine, so HPE is the better investment at today's valuation rather than the better company. x.com x.com x.com x.com