Alexei Oreskovic
Updated for 12:06 p.m. EST
SAN FRANCISCO -- Fixing a company is not meant to be easy. And as Dell(DELL Quote - Cramer on DELL - Stock Picks) learned late Thursday, appeasing investors during such an overhaul can be even tougher. Despite showing important signs of progress in various parts of its business, the PC maker's stock got whacked as investors registered their displeasure with Dell's rising costs and the pace of its rehabilitation. Shares of Dell continued to sink Friday, finishing down $3.60, or 12.8%, to $24.54 to close at its lowest level in nearly 8 months. The Street's reaction to Dell's third-quarter earnings report was epitomized by Goldman Sachs, which ejected Dell from its "conviction buy" list of preferred companies and replaced it with Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote - Cramer on HPQ - Stock Picks) -- just one month after adding Dell to the list. "Although our thesis on Dell as a turnaround is intact, the timeline is not and the uncertainty is higher," wrote Goldman Sachs analyst Laura Conigliaro in a note to investors. The improvement in Dell's operating margin -- which reached 5.3% in the third quarter vs. 5.1% at this time a year ago -- is "smaller and more gradual than we had been expecting," wrote Conigliaro, who maintained her buy rating on Dell despite evicting it from the VIP list and cutting her price target from $35 to $32.
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