Has Buying Dell Stock’s Dips Paid Off?

For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com.

Dell Technologies (DELL) stock closed at $493.79 on October 28, 2026. That price represents a 15.6% drop from the stock’s highest close of the past month on October 9. The steepest decline happened on October 14, when shares fell 11.3% in a single session. That day Barclays cut its rating on Dell to Equal Weight from Overweight, citing concerns that enterprise AI adoption is lagging. Such rapid drops often leave investors wondering whether to buy, and Dell has recorded harder falls before. So what happened to buyers who stepped in after Dell’s earlier sharp falls?

Most Of Dell’s Earlier Dips Ended A Year Higher

Dell has experienced seven drops of more than 20% within 30 trading days since late December 2018. Buyers who held the stock for a year came out ahead after four of the six earlier falls that have a full year behind them. Across all six of those completed periods, shares posted a median gain of 41.5%. The two losing instances, from June 2019 and July 2024, ended the year down 12% and 10%. The seventh drop, from November 2025, remains too recent to judge.

Realizing that gain usually meant sitting through more losses first. In the median case, the lowest close in the year following a dip was 33.0% below the close on the dip date. The highest price of that year arrived a median 262 days after the dip, or close to nine months later.

Dell’s Sales And Margin Rose While Quarterly Cash Fell

Dell is expanding its sales much faster than it was a year ago. Revenue for fiscal Q2 2027, the quarter ending July 31, 2026, reached $47.0 billion, up 57.7% from a year earlier. Operating margin also climbed, reaching 11.6% from 6.4% in the same quarter of fiscal 2026. During the fiscal Q2 2027 call on September 1, management said customers are modernizing their data centers for AI and other work, and that demand is exceeding supply. Dell ended the quarter with a record $95 billion of AI backlog, management said.

Cash did not keep pace. Even as revenue jumped, cash from operations in fiscal Q2 2027 was $2.23 billion, falling below the $2.54 billion recorded in the same quarter a year earlier. Over the past twelve months, cash from operations still rose, increasing to $12.2 billion from $7.48 billion.

What Are Buyers Paying For Dell Now?

Buyers are paying more for each dollar of Dell’s earnings than for the market’s. At the October 28 close, shares traded at 28.0 times the past twelve months’ earnings, against 22.6 for the S&P 500. Dell’s own price-to-earnings ratio reached an even higher 30.5 at the end of September 2026. Only June 2026 saw a higher ratio among the 32 quarter ends since late 2018.

Management expects more growth. The company raised its fiscal 2027 revenue forecast to $192 billion in September, up from the $167 billion projected in May.

A buyer today is betting that a faster-growing Dell can repeat the gains that followed most of its earlier dips. All of those past declines occurred before Dell posted its two highest quarter-end price-to-earnings ratios in June and September 2026. Dell’s cash from operations, set beside its revenue, will be the figure to watch when the company is expected to report in November 2026.

Sitting On A Big Gain In Dell Technologies?

After a run like this, the hard questions are personal: hold, trim or sell, and the tax on each. Our partner advisory firm offers a free strategy review of ways to keep part of the upside, protect the rest and spread the tax over years.

Request A Free Strategy Review

Spot an error or want more like this? Tell us in 10 seconds.