CDW Sales A Bad Read for Corporate Spending

By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat

We have written before that bullish investors are hoping that spending by businesses will pick up any slack from a slowing consumer. Well, we’re still waiting.
CDW Average Daily Sales Rise in November: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

Total sales were up 11.9 percent to $569.2 million, from $508.5 million last year.Excluding the October acquisition of Berbee Information Networks Corp., average daily sales grew 5 percent to $25.5 million, from $24.2 million last year. Total sales grew 5 percent to $534.8 million, from $508.5 million last year.

Average daily sales for the public sector grew 14.9 percent, whiles sales for the corporate sector grew 1.5 percent, both excluding Berbee sales.

CDW sells technology to a wide range of businesses, and is therefore one of several companies that can provide a good indication of overall business investment in technology. 5% growth is slower than nominal GDP growth, which would indicate that business spending is shrinking as a percentage of economic activity, rather than growing.

The author may hold a position in the securities discussed. The author’s current holdings are as follows: Long: FedEx (FDX) put options; Intuit (INTU) put options; Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ) put options; Bookham (BKHM; Ballard Power (BLDP); Syntax Brillian (BRLC); CMGI (CMGI); Genentech (DNA); Ion Media Networks (ION); Lion’s Gate (LGF); Three Five Systems (TFS); Adobe Systems (ADBE) call options; IShares Japan (EWJ); StreetTracks Gold (GLD); Starbucks (SBUX); U.S. Oil Fund (USO); Plantronics (PLT) call options; Short: Ceradyne (CRDN) put options; Lion’s Gate (LGF) call options; Dell (DELL) put options; Plantronics (PLT) put options

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