JP Morgan downgraded big China-based PC maker Lenovo. According to Reuters, the brokerage cut Lenovo "to neutral from overweight due to a near-term slowdown in revenue growth from weak China demand and a slower ramp-up of the U.S. consumer business."

That is not exactly good news for U.S. PC companies Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) that already appear to be losing market share to the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) Mac. China is a critical market to both companies, and any sign of further stress in the U.S. market does not leave them many regions to make up for faltering demand.

Wall Street is already concerned that a recession in the U.S. and slowing economies abroad will hammer the PC market. Like most American companies, HP and Dell thought they could always rely on the rapidly expanding markets in Asia.

It turns out that the best laid plans are not working out.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Shareholders of EDS Corp. (NYSE: EDS) are starting to fidget in their collective seats now that the a shareholder meeting between the company and suitor Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) is scheduled for July 31st. The delay is being brought on by a contingent of shareholders that believes the price H-P will be paying for EDS is, of course, too low.

The shareholders claim that the $25 per share price is too low in addition to a provision that doesn't allow the EDS board to accept higher offers, should one be brought forth. Dallas-area law firm Baron & Budd said "With increased revenues over the past 12 months and 2008 projections on track, the shareholders are questioning why EDS is accepting what many experts consider to be an undervalued share price." Since EDS is headquartered in Plano, Texas -- just outside Dallas -- perhaps some heavy-handed Texas shareholders don't want to sell out to a west coast firm? Who knows.

EDS continues to believe the acquisition by H-P is still in the best interests of the company. A combined HP-EDS would have more than 200,000 employees with operations in more than 80 countries. The combination would form a large challenge to business services and consulting company IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) as H-P tries to conquer yet another giant after taking the PC sales leadership crown from Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) in 2007.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is reporting its fiscal third quarter financial results Monday, July 21, after the close. The question is not only what Apple will report, but also how the Street will react, and most important, is it a buy ahead of earnings?

In terms of numbers, according to Thompson Financial's survey of analysts, Apple is expected to report net income of $972.6 million, or $1.08 per share, on sales of $7.4 billion. That's an 18.9% profit growth and a 37% sales growth.

Investors will be interested in the following:

iPhone sales numbers for Q3 may not interest investors that much, as the new 3G iPhone was released in fiscal Q4, and that is expected to be the main driver of iPhone sales going forward. The launch, despite its technical glitches was very successful, but investors might be concerned over Apple's ability to supply the demand. Already German and many U.S. stores have experienced shortages.

Most investors probably think that PC sales in the U.S. are a bit slow these days because of the recession. Now, they can sleep better because industry figures for Q2 show they are right. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Gartner Inc. said world-wide PC shipments grew 16% in the period, with U.S. shipments growing 4.2%."

The only real warning sign in the data is that units sales growth is slowing some in Asia. Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) still have the largest market shares worldwide while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shipments grew 38% in the U.S. during the period.

The important news is that Asia may not be able to make up for slowing U.S. sales growth. If formerly hot markets like China and India are not doing terribly well, the entire PC industry is in for a choppy time.

The data contradicts information from the recent Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) earnings. Not only is the company doing well, it said the rest of the year looked bright. Someone must be doing OK selling PCs and servers somewhere. The Gartner research appears to say otherwise.

For investors in PC and chip companies, it appears the information about how the industry is doing has become confused. Now they can join shareholders in almost every other sector of the market where no one seems to have a handle on what is happening.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Classic blue-chip tech company IBM (NYSE: IBM), whose colleagues include Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), is due to report earnings on Thursday after the market closes up shop. What are investors looking for? Growth, of course. Should they expect it?

Well, according to Trey Thoelcke's earnings data, Wall Street is looking for IBM to deliver earnings per share around the $1.82 mark for the second quarter. Revenues should be near $25.9 billion. If Big Blue hits both of these numbers, it would show that the company is coming along fine and that the current level of the stock price is justified. Of course, Wall Street doesn't want IBM to merely hit those numbers. Oh no, that would be too easy. Wall Street wants IBM to beat those expectations. In terms of the bottom line, there is positive recent history for an earnings beat. The company handily beat estimates in the last two quarters, and met expectations in the two quarters previous to that time frame.

Will the company beat expectations? I think it will. The momentum seems to be favorable for such an outcome. In fact, in a relative sense, the stock isn't signaling a terrible report by any stretch of the imagination. The 52-week low is $97.04 and the 52-week high is $129.99. IBM closed up on Wednesday over 2% to a share price of $125.94. Doesn't sound like the market is worried, does it?

Sun Microsystems' (NASDAQ: JAVA) preliminary numbers for the fourth quarter sparked an after-sessions rally on Tuesday. The tech entity said it should see somewhere between $3.7 billion and $3.8 billion for the top line. Earnings per diluted share will come in between $0.25 and $0.35 on a non-GAAP basis. Gross margin should be at least 44%.

Wall Street was apparently happy that Sun didn't expect an earnings bomb, according to this Reuters article. Understandable, considering the current state of the economy. It looks like Sun has an okay chance of meeting or beating earnings expectations. Reuters says that analysts are looking for 10 cents per share on a GAAP basis. Management is looking to do somewhere between 5 cents and 15 cents per share. It's too bad the range wasn't more narrow, but I guess the theme here is that if business is at least this good, then the shares are a buy.

As for me, I'm not sure I see the merit of the euphoria. Sure, things could have been worse, but that doesn't mean I want to buy Sun here. The stock has done horribly this year, losing 50% of its value year-to-date (at least before the rally). I think investors should be very careful about chasing values during these bearish times. It's hard to say how bad the recession will be, and how it will affect the tech names. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) have seen their stocks pressured by sellers. If the shares of those blue chips are having problems, I can't see why I'd want to chase Sun Microsystems.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) certainly has a major footprint in the small business space with such things as PCs, servers and, of course, printers.

But HP is expanding its offerings. For example, last year the company purchased Logoworks and is now putting out some useful eBooks.

One is called the 9 Steps to Outstanding Market Success.

No doubt, it is colorful with many useful checklists, tips, examples and worksheets. Some of the topics include: social media, branding, search engine marketing, online marketing and so on. Ultimately, it's a good way to spark ideas to enhance your business.

Every month HP will release a new chapter (so far, it's on chapter five). The last chapter will be on October 15.

All in all, its helpful information – and not too overwhelming. And you can check it out at the small biz section of HP.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Before the bell: Oil, financials woes send futures lower

Before the bell: Futures mixed after selloff

Coventry Health (NYSE: CVH) shares were down nearly 17% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the managed-care provider lowered estimates for second-quarter and full-year earnings due to disappointing April and May results. Wachovia downgraded CVH to Market Perform from Outperform. Other healthcare stocks felt the pressure and were down in after-hours or premarket trading: UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH) -7%, Aetna (NYSE: AET) -9.9%, WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) -6%, Humana (NYSE: HUM) -5% and Cigna (NYSE: CI) -5%.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Long Island, NY's Astoria Financial Corp (NYSE: AF) has found a novel way to reduce the number of its nonperforming loans by changing its internal policy on when mortgages are classified on its books as troubled, the Wall Street Journal reported. By counting home loans as non performing when the borrower misses at least three payments, not two, Astoria reduced its non-performers to $69M from $106M in three months.
• The Wall Street Journal also reported that the indictments of Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, two former Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers, are expected to cite a personal e-mail suggesting the funds were "toast," four days before they told investors they had little to worry about. JP Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) has said it will cover the legal costs of the fund managers.
• Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) is set to reorganize its printer unit. The Wall Street Journal said that the unit's five business units will be cut down to three to become more efficient at adapting to a marketplace in which consumers are relying less on printing.
• According to people close to the situation, the Financial Times reported that Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc's (NYSE: BUD) board of directors is planning to meet this week to discuss the $46B bid from rival brewer InBev.

In order to drive up market share in those niche PC categories, Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is joining the fray of the miniature laptop PC with the new "E" and "E Slim." Wow, those are catchy names. Many manufacturers offer ultraportable mobile PCs designs, but many have also failed miserably. Now Dell wants to get in on the action of those who would love to purchase a high-margin, tiny laptop for all those internet tasks. These are dubbed "netbooks."

Dell joins fellow competitors Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) and Taiwan's Asus in making a tiny laptop PC that uses flash memory instead of an actual hard drive and comes with a display that is less than 10 inches measured diagonally (standard laptop screens are 15.4 inches). HP unveiled its miniature notebook just a month ago, so Dell did not waste a bit of time here. In addition to the "E," Dell's "E Slim" takes aim at the larger, ultra-thin laptop market made famous by Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) MacBook Air, and followed up with HP's recently announced Voodoo Envy.

What are all these manufacturers trying to do with all the slim-n-thin and tiny laptop designs? First of all, find some margin playroom now that the popular laptop PC category has seen shrunken retail prices as of late, although the Dell "E" will start at $299 when it debuts later this summer. Also, to continue finding those niches, there is pent-up demand. The "pocketable" laptop PC has been forever elusive, but some of these designs are getting very close to finding the perfect balance between usability and portability.

In a sign that computer maker Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) isn't sitting on its laurels as the world's largest PC manufacturer, the company announced over 50 new products yesterday. This was HP's largest announcement from its Personal Storage Group (PSG) division ever in terms of quantity of products introduced.

HP also introduced the world's thinnest laptop computer, in a swipe at Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) MacBook Air. Probably the most important announcement was that HP's professional and consumer-level laptop PCs were all going to be refreshed. A similar move about 18 months ago in its consumer laptop designs and retail partnerships helped push HP past competitor Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) as the largest PC manufacturer in the world, and now it's upping the game again by getting all-new designs to market at all the relevant screen sizes (14", 15" and 17").

With Taiwanese competitor Acer selling a ton of laptop PCs recently and Dell resurgent on the consumer side of its business (including retail availability), HP definitely does not want to cede any of the market share it has that has helped it become the largest overall global PC maker. The company currently has 35%+ of the consumer laptop PC market, and with all-news designs coming soon, it may be able to keep hold of that number. But Acer and Dell, the second and third-largest makers of laptop PCs, sure won't make it easy.

Altogether now:

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take

Well, if Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) has been listening to Yael Naim singing in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s MacBook Air ads, I hope it concentrated on the above first part only when it decided to bring a new soul to the ultra-thin portable notebook computer market.

The Voodoo Envy, which is about 0.7 inches thick and weighs some 3.4 pounds, was introduced at an event in Berlin today. To compare, the MacBook Air weighs three pounds and its sloping design makes its thickness varying from 0.16 inches at the thinnest part to 0.76 inches at the thickest. Both have a 13.3 inch display and while the Mac starts at $1799, the Voodoo starts at $2099.

Before the bell: Futures lower following Bernanke's inflation comments

After the 3G iPhone was finally announced Monday, with a price tag and a business model that could take the funky phone to the masses, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) ended lower on some profit taking. But have no fear. Already this morning, Citigroup raised Apple's price target to $287 from $248 with a Buy rating, and Lehman raised it to $234 from $202, maintaining its Overweight rating. Despite the stock trading higher in European markets, it's still not showing signs of recovery in premarket trading in the US.

ThinkPanmure initiated Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) with a Buy, claiming it is gaining market share over rival Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). The analyst also said Intel is gaining prominence in the server, desktop and notebook markets.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) updated its desktop and notebook computers. It introduced Tuesday in Berlin a new ultra-thin portable, the Voodoo Envy, to rival Apple's MacBook Air. H-P also added a new version of a touch-screen desktop PC and 16 notebooks for consumers and businesses.

Before the bell: Stocks could rebound

The day has finally come. June 9 is here and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s Steve Jobs is expected to announced a new 3G iPhone in his keynote speech during the annual developers conference in San Francisco. The features of a new iPhone have been the subject of much speculation, all to be settled today, one way or the other. A new business model is also expected with subsidies paid by wireless carriers.

Boeing Co (NYSE: BA) said on Monday its 787 Dreamliner would make its first flight in the fourth quarter of 2008, on schedule according to the revised timeline announced in April for the new aeroplane's launch. First deliveries of the plane were scheduled for the third quarter of 2009, also as previously stated.

American International Group Inc (NYSE: AIG)'s CEO, Martin Sullivan, is facing dissent from three large shareholders who together control 4%, as reported Sunday on The Wall Street Journal. They sent a letter to the board regarding management improvements.