Samsung Galaxy S4 sales may have missed the market, and doubts drove its shares lower.

According to Reuters:

Samsung Electronics Co lost $12 billion in market value on Friday, hit by brokerage downgrades that have underscored concerns about slowing sales of its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone.

The share slide of more than 6 percent comes after it recently introduced two stripped-down versions of the S4, fanning worries that profit margins for its mobile business will suffer. It also follows a report that arch-rival Apple  will begin a trade-in programme for iPhones.

The new stripped-down S4 models will help it widen its lead in the global smartphone market and fend off Chinese competitors, but some fear that the South Korean tech giant is trading in profits for volume.

Analysts say sales momentum for the high-end version of the S4, which became its fastest selling smartphone since its launch in late April, has slowed.

Killing off Apple’s smartphone line may just have gotten less likely. And the sell-off in Apple’s shares has lost some of its support.

That’s interesting, but not unexpected. What is unexpected is that in the statement, Southeastern reveals that it “sent Mr. [Michael] Dell a spreadsheet assuming for discussion purposes that the price in [a going-private] transaction would be approximately $17.00 per share, and illustrating [Southeastern’s] capacity comfortably to finance such a transaction.” The communications began in June 2012.

Southeastern, which is Dell’s largest non-insider shareholder with about 8.2% of the company’s stock, says it sought confidentiality agreements with Dell in order that Southeastern might gain access to information on any material transaction involving Dell, but the requests were denied. Southeastern also says it indicated that it would oppose any offer for deal in the range of $14 to $15 a share that did not include a provision for existing stockholders to roll over all or a portion of their holdings.

Dell Inc. has accepted the $13.65 all cash offer from Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, an offer that Southeastern quickly told Dell that it would oppose. The counter-offer from Icahn and Southeastern has been rejected by Dell’s board of directors, who believe the company’s financing for the deal is undercapitalized by $3.9 billion.

The committee essentially rejected a proposed offer from activist investor Carl Icahn because the offer may be insufficiently capitalized. A souring market for personal computers coupled with the risks associated with Dell’s transition to an enterprise solutions business led the committee to conclude that the Dell/Silver Lake offer was superior.

Michael Dell and Silver Lake have offered $13.65 a share in cash in a deal valued at $24.4 billion. Icahn’s offer included a $12 per share special dividend, boosting the potential per share offer by about $10 a share.

The board’s committee noted a “significant liquidity gap in the recapitalization proposed by Icahn/Southeastern that could reduce the promised $12.00 per share special dividend to $9.35 per share — and to $8.50 per share if Icahn/Southeastern are the only shareholders electing the equity stub instead of cash.”

In a presentation filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the board’s committee noted that Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management did not provide details of their offer and projected a $3.9 billion funding shortfall.

Dell’s shares are trading fractionally higher in the first half hour this morning, at $13.43 in a 52-week range of $8.69 to $14.64.

Walkley said:

Our surveys also indicated price reductions late in the March quarter to iPhone 4/4S models continued to drive strong overall iPhone unit sales in pre-paid and international carriers as well as global distributor channels. Given the stronger iPhone 4/4S mix at lower ASPs, we are adjusting our June quarter iPhone estimates.

The good news is that on a longer-term basis the expectation is that Apple has a strong product pipeline, including a refreshed iPhone 5S in the September quarter. This is expected to reaccelerate year-over-year earnings growth. Today’s research call targets iPhone 4/4S sales assumptions for the June and September quarters. The June quarter is put at 27 million units, versus 25 million units, and the September quarter is raised to 30 million units from 29 million units.

Canaccord Genuity is also considering HTC and Samsung smartphone sales. The firm now believes that Samsung surpassed Apple for the number one U.S. smartphone market share for the first time since the iPhone 5 launch during May. The firm does caution that its global surveys indicated strong sales of iPhone 4 and 4S models in international markets, driven by price cuts made late in the March quarter. On HTC, the firm said that its surveys indicate solid HTC One sales and strong reviews, versus the Samsung Galaxy S4.

On top of the Buy recommendation for Apple stock, the firm’s price target is $560, compared with a recent $449.31 close. That implies upside of  almost 25%, and the consensus price target is $540.86, according to Thomson Reuters. Keep in mind that the fresh ruling against Apple in favor of Samsung will still take a while play out after appeals and negotiations.

Apple is down 0.6% at $446.60 right at the market open this Wednesday.

A first issue is that Barron’s gave Intel a very positive article over the weekend. Intel was called a stock that could double over the next five years or so, based on lower costs and foundry wins, plus the sentiment has been bad due to underperforming the stock market.

Another boost came from Wall Street on Monday morning. The team at FBR Capital Markets raised Intel’s rating to Outperform from Market Perform and raised its price target to $28 from a prior $23 target that has been on the books for some time. FBR feels that lost PC-related sales may be made up in part from system-on-a-chip (SoC) orders and in server strength.

What stood out the most to us was some underreported news out of Samsung. It turns out that Samsung will use Intel processors for its newest version of Galaxy tablets that should go on sale later in June. This is effectively the first big and public win for Intel as this mobility sector has been dominated by Qualcomm and ARM.

A last thing to consider is that Intel is now under a new chief executive, but perhaps that has culminated in all of these positives as it has been known for weeks.

Investors are responding with cheers as Intel’s stock price is up 3.8% at $25.20, against a 52-week trading range of $19.23 to $27.75. Pay attention closely because Intel has been so out of favor that the investment community has been negative to the point that many more upgrades could come down the pipe. Intel’s consensus price target from Wall Street analysts is only $23.44 and the peak share price was closer to $28 in early 2012. Intel trades at a market discount P/E ratio of about 13.5 after today’s nearly 4$ gain.

Reuters reports on Samsung’s selection of Intel:

Samsung Electronics has chosen an Intel processor to power a new version of one of its top-tier Android tablets, a source with knowledge of the plans told Reuters, in a major victory for the U.S. chipmaker, which is struggling to find its footing in the mobile market. Samsung has chosen Intel’s Clover Trail mobile chip for at least one version of its Galaxy Tab 3 10.1, which competes with Apple’s iPad, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the specifications have not been announced.

Ricci said, “We’re a fundamental provider for Apple.” The D11 conference site also shows that Ricci confirmed what has already been long been suspected because Nuance has such a broad voice recognition software patent.

A full Q& A session can be found here at the D11 site.

What is unfortunate for Nuance is that the stock was recently battered after earnings. In fact, that was bad enough that Nuance’s stock price is close enough to a 52-week low again that it has been a wonder that you haven’t seen a rekindled buyout rumor mill again in Nuance. In the years past it had been rumored on more than just one occasion that Apple, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), or other tech and electronics providers would be buyers of Nuance if they could get the company at the right price.

Now the maker of Dragon Software is seeing shares up 1.3% on the day but only at $19.61. Its 52-week trading range is $18.00 to $25.89 and shares were never really able to close in on the $30 handle as many investors were hoping. Shares currently trade at about 14-times expected earnings and about 3-times expected sales.

Perhaps the real question is whether or not a buyer would buy Nuance at much of a premium above its $6.2 billion market value today or whether they would only buy the company if the shares became much more affordable.

As for Google Glass, it’s probably not likely to be a mass-market item, Cook said. “It’s probably more likely to appeal to certain markets,” Cook said. But wearables as a broader market, Cook said, could be a profoundly interesting area of technology. Cook notes that he wears a Nike FuelBand. “I think Nike did a great job with this.” Most of the good ones on the market do only one thing. The ones that do more than one thing don’t do anything particularly well. “There’s lots of things to solve in this space,” he said, adding it is an area that is “ripe for exploration.”Lots of companies will be doing things in this space. Walt: Will Apple be one of them? Cook: I don’t want to answer that one.

Apple’s new watch must be on its way.

[T]he world’s second-biggest maker of personal computers, reported a 90 percent gain in fourth-quarter profit after increasing its market share and boosting smartphone sales.

Net income climbed to $126.9 million in the three months ended March, from $66.8 million a year earlier, Lenovo said in a statement today. That beat the $108.1 million average of eight analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Lenovo is developing mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets as it seeks to lure customers from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. and weather a global slump in demand for PCs. The company maintained PC sales and expanded market share in the quarter, even as global shipments dropped 13.9 percent, researcher International Data Corp. reported in April.

The PC and IT-services giant has reported earnings of $0.87 EPS and revenue was down 10% to $27.6 billion. Thomson Reuters had estimates of $0.81 EPS and $28.12 billion in revenue. Next quarter’s earnings were put at $0.84 to $0.87 per share on an adjusted basis versus a consensus estimate of $0.84 EPS. The company’s adjusted guidance for 2013 is $3.50 to $3.60 in earnings per share versus a consensus of $3.49 per share.

Cash flow from operations rose 44% to $3.6 billion and the company spent $1.1 billion in capital returns on dividends and buybacks. Inventory ended the quarter at $6.0 billion, down 2 days year over year to 26 days. Accounts receivable of $14.6 billion, down 1 day year over year to 48 days. Accounts payable ended the quarter at $12.3 billion, up 4 days year over year to 53 days.

Meg Whitman is maintaining that HP’s turnaround is not going to occur quickly. She said, “I am encouraged by our performance in the second quarter, and I feel good about the rest of the year. As I have said many times before, this is a multi-year journey. We have a long way to go, but we are on track to deliver on our fiscal 2013 non-GAAP diluted earnings per share outlook.”

The sales declines will make you realize that the challenges facing Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) are not company specific. Personal Systems revenue was down 20% year over year with a 3.2% operating margin, with total units down 21%: desktop units -18% and notebooks -24%. Printing was down only 1% and a 15.8% operating margin even though total printing units were down 11% from a year ago. Enterprise group revenue was down 10% and enterprise services revenue was down 8%.

SOmetimes bad news is just much better than what the market was bracing for. HP closed up 0.6% at $21.25 on the day versus a 52-week range of $11.35 to $24.05. HP shares are up about 9% at $23.45 in the after-hours trading session.