Earnings season is upon us in the tech sector. What should investors expect from these reports? What are the key storylines to follow and are these stocks likely to trade higher or lower in the wake of their results?
In NextInning.com's earnings previews, available free to trial subscribers, key storylines are evaluated, analyst expectations are audited, and in depth valuation analyses are provided to develop fair value ranges for dozens of stocks. Next Inning's model portfolio has returned 286% since 2002, more than six times the return of the S&P 500.
In its upcoming earnings preview, Next Inning looks at several popular stocks, including VMware (NYSE: VMW - News), EMC (NYSE: EMC - News), Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS - News), STMicroelectronics NV (NYSE: STM - News), SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK - News), Silicon Laboratories (NASDAQ: SLAB - News), and Celestica (NYSE: CLS - News).
Here is just a tiny sample of what Editor Paul McWilliams wrote about SanDisk:
"SanDisk is unique in the world of semiconductor companies in that it is the only pure-play manufacturer of NAND Flash memory. The reason this is interesting is that while NAND Flash shares many economic characteristics with all other memory technologies, it is unique in that it is the first and still only memory technology that can both scale with Moore's Law and support
electronically erasable archival storage duty.
"This is important because it means the aggregate potential demand for NAND Flash is substantially higher than current manufacturing capacity and highly elastic with price. While demand for other memory technologies is elastic to some degree, the degree of demand elasticity is substantially more finite.
"One of the important things to understand about NAND Flash is that it has very different demand drivers than other types of semiconductor memory devices. There are four primary applications served by memory devices..."
Just a few of the correct calls Next Inning has already made this earnings season include:
- to be bullish on Linear Technology (NASDAQ: LLTC - News) ahead of earnings. (up 10% year to date)
- to be bullish on Intel (NASDAQ: INTC - News) ahead of earnings. (up 9% year to date)
- to be bullish on Triquint Semiconductor (NASDAQ: TQNT - News) to start 2012. (up 24% year to date)

