STOCKS TO WATCH: Ariba, Centura, Qualcomm, SGI and Yahoo!

Ariba shares will be hopping ahead of its third-quarter earnings report.

First Call Corp. consensus pegs the B2B software provider for a loss of 8 cents a share in the quarter.

Its shares closed off 4 1/4 to 91 1/8 Tuesday, well off its 52-week high of 183 5/16 set in March.

Analysts are predicting sales of between $47 million to $49.7 million. On Ariba's conference call, analysts will be looking for more details about the recent acquisition of SupplierMarket.com, as well as the second half outlook. Ariba could come in with better-than-expected sales totals.

Last quarter, Ariba posted a loss of 6 cents a share.

Centura shares will be on the decline Wednesday after the software developer warned that its second-quarter sales and earnings will fall well short of analysts' estimates.

Company officials said Tuesday it expects to lose between $4.8 million to $5.3 million in the quarter, or 11 cents to 13 cents a share.

A survey of analysts by First Call Corp. predicted it would earn a penny a share in the quarter.

Centura said its computer client/server sales were softer than expected.

Qualcomm will be worth watching Wednesday after announcing late Tuesday that it had licensed Taiwan's largest cordless telephone maker to use Qualcomm's CDMA technology.

Qualcomm said the multi-million dollar deal grants Taipei-based Cherish Telecom a license to use Qualcomm's proprietary CDMA technology and patents for wireless applications.

San Diego-based Qualcomm said separately it entered into a CDMA license agreement with First International Computer, also of Taiwan. The deal grants FIC a license to develop and sell modem card products for CDMA and High Data Rate (HDR) for wireless applications.

Its shares closed off 1 7/8 to 53 ahead of the announcement.

The stock has been cut in half in the past two months on concerns over lukewarm sales in South Korea and setbacks in the lucrative Chinese market.

SGI shares will be active Wednesday after the computer workstation maker warned that weak sales in its fourth quarter will result in a wider-than-expected loss for the second quarter in a row.

SGI said it now expects fourth-quarter sales of between $525 million to $535 million in the quarter, down from the $563.7 million it recorded in the third quarter.

It also said its loss will be larger than the current First Call Corp. consensus estimate of 8 cents a share, but wouldn't elaborate on just how much wider the loss will be.

Ahead of the warning, SGI shares closed unchanged at 3 3/4.

SGI will announce its fourth-quarter results July 24 after the bell.

It shouldn't have surprised anyone, but Yahoo! easily topped analysts' estimates in its second quarter.

The Internet portal posted a profit of $74 million, or 12 cents a share, on sales of $270 million.

First Call Corp. consensus expected it to earn 10 cents a share in the quarter.

The $270 million in sales marks a 110 percent jump from the year-ago quarter when it earned $27 million, or 5 cents a share, on sales of $128.6 million.

Ahead of the earnings report, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) shares closed off 4 1/2 to 105 1/2. In after-hours trading, the stock shot up to 112 3/8.

The impressive sales growth surprised analysts who were expecting total sales of between $221 million to $251 million.

Including a variety of one-time charges, Yahoo! earned $65.5 million, or 11 cents a share, in the quarter.