Although more than a few major tech companies reshape their earnings plans, the situation isn't as bad as some feared.
The first couple of weeks after the end of a quarter is the time when companies take an early look at sales and earnings, so with September just concluded, Wall Street spent last week anxiously waiting to see which technology stars would report profit warnings.
And investors may have decided the earnings picture wasn't as bad as feared. The Nasdaq composite index closed the week up 7.1 percent, despite worse-than-expected jobless figures that were released Friday.
To be sure, more than a few major tech companies dismantled earnings models.
The computer hardware industry heard of lower-than-forecast results from three of its largest vendors, Compaq Computer, Gateway and Sun Microsystems.
Compaq admitted its planned merger with Hewlett-Packard caused a hiccup in business. EMC until recently was slow to respond to aggressive price cuts from competitors. Market research indicates Sun lost server market share to IBM, though Sun executives and many analysts insist competition has had little or no impact on the bottom line.
Cisco Systems and Dell Computer went out of their way to say that quarterly results appeared on track. Even the enterprise applications segment--which sees more sales near the end of a quarter than almost any other market, tech or otherwise--escaped without warnings from major players.
Earnings veneer
Consensus forecasts for profit can be met even in the face of declining revenue.