has david errington gone awol?, page-5

BUT WAIT !! As they say in America, "shut my mouth!"

Just when I thought Errington was among the missing, under today's headline in The West Australian "EXPERTS EATING CROW OVER COLES REBOUND," Errington was BACK, justifying his "UNDERPERFORM" rating and $26 price target:

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"Most analysts also upgraded their full-year earnings estimates for the conglomerate, albeit grudgingly.

Merrill Lynch's David Errington, a long-time critic of the Wesfarmers business model, admitted he was flabbergasted by the surprisingy strong results from Kmart and Target.

'We find it difficult to understand how Kmart delivered such a remarkable profit performance. We rang just about every industry contact we have...and they are equally nonplussed by the results as we are.'

Mr Errington underestimated Wesfarmers' interim net profit of $879 million...by $130 million.

And while he praised Kmart management for its ability to produce a 6.9% earnings margin--higher than the best margin ever produced at the Woolworths-owned Big W--he insisted it was unsustainable in the long term and maintained his underperform rating on Wesfarmers' shares.

With the exception of two short-term upgrades to neutral, he has rated Wesfarmers 'underperform' since July 2006, a year before the stock hit a record high of $41.985."

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Damn, don't you hate facts? They have such a NASTY way of trashing your theories! I guess that doesn't apply if you're David Errington, you just ignore them and trumpet your views louder...