NEW YORK, Aug. 25 -- Buried in the notes of Broadcom's latest quarterly filing is a number the company did not put in a press release: $164.6 billion of orders that customers have firmly committed to, and, in some cases, cannot walk away from.

The phrasing is the part that matters. Broadcom tells the Securities and Exchange Commission that certain of its multi-year customer contracts, including contracts where customers do not have termination rights, contain firmly committed amounts. Those obligations totalled approximately $164.6 billion at the start of May, and the company expects to recognise about 30 per cent of them as revenue within twelve months.

On Monday the stock fell 2.04 per cent to $360.93 and now sits 27.1 per cent below ...