For its fourth quarter ended in April, NetApp reported a 19% revenue growth to about $1.7 billion with earnings coming in at $0.66 EPS versus $0.63 estimates. The problem is with first quarter guidance, where NetApp now see revenue down about 12% to 18% sequentially to $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion versus estimates of just over $1.6 billion; that revenue is down 4% to up 3% from a year earlier.  NetApp also sees earnings of $0.34 to $0.39 EPS versus a consensus of $0.59 EPS.

Unfortunately, this translates to death of growth and this company has grown and grown in the past.  Here is how three analysts have chimed in so far today with more calls likely:

• Cut to Hold at Brean Murray;
• Cut to Sector Perform at RBC;
• Cut to Hold at Stern Agee.

The death of growth is never a good thing for companies which used to be high-flyers.  Shares are now down about 17% at $27.20 against a prior 52-week range of $31.94 to $56.49.  At least this is better than things were last night when shares were down as much as 20% in the after-hours session.  Nothing to celebrate here…

JON C. OGG

When you see a drop of 17% on Dell, you might expect that the volume was 100 million shares or so.  As of 11 AM EST we have still not even seen 40 million shares trade against an average volume of 16.5 million.  The volume is strong, but this feels like the sort of news that would drive 100 million shares.  That being said, Dell traded 51,440,000 shares per NASDAQ trading data on its last earnings report day-after.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) is set to report earnings today after the close of trading and estimates are $0.91 EPS and $29.92 billion in sales.  Let’s just say that it is safe to assume that the estimates have unofficially come down significantly.  H-P shares are down 4.6% at $20.77 and this is a new 52-week low.  As a reminder, HP is expected to announce a major round of tech layoffs today as part of its restructuring.

This appears to be the worst trading day in more than a decade for Dell on a percentage drop.  Dell is down 17.1% at $12.50 now and the prior 52-week range is $13.29 to $18.36.  Dell is now probably under 6-times forward earnings estimates after the drop and H-P is roughly the same.  The problem is that no one is willing to pay for contracting earnings power of this sort.  Dell offers no dividend to entice shareholders to stay around, and HP offers at least a yield of about 2.2% based on today’s price.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is down 3.2% at $25.19 and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is down 2.9% at $28.90.

Elsewhere in key PC components, the fallout continues… Seagate Technology PLC (NYSE: STX) is down 2% at $25.81 against a recent high of $32.55 and Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) is down 2% at $33.82 against a recent high of $44.44.  We warned investors not to chase those on the last round of good news as it should have been anticipated at the end of 2011 and in the first quarter of this year.  It may seem a bit of a surprise, but the US king of DRAM via Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) is down only 0.2% at $5.70 because it is already down so much from the highs of $10.23 over the last year.

It goes without saying… wrecking balls swing back and forth, and the damage is severe.  Dell has become technology’s wrecking ball and having a ”LOW P/E VALUATION” is about as relevant as gold to a dead man today.

JON C. OGG

Dell blamed “alternative mobile computing devices” for its poor earnings and poorer forecast. Dell reported a 4% fall in revenue to $14.4 billion, as well as a profit of $0.43 a share. The consensus forecast among analysts who follow Dell was $14.9 billion in revenue and $0.46 a share in profit. Results for the company’s notebook operations were particularly weak. After the announcement, Dell’s shares fell like a stone.

Dell has had the tools to enter the tablet PC and smartphone businesses. The company still makes money and has almost $14 billion in cash. Its enterprise server sales remain healthy. Dell has no excuse for allowing the cutting edge of computing to pass it by.

It is reasonable to blame Michael Dell because he has controlled the company since the start. He could not possibly have missed the surge in the sales of smartphones by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), and later Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-powered devices, or the iPad. Dell has not made a substantial push into either market. The risks would have been big, both in terms of investment and reputation. Yet, it was a risk worth taking, based solely on the alternative, which was to be left behind.

It is already too late for Dell to enter the rapidly emerging markets of smartphones and tablets. The market shares of Apple, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Samsung are already too large. Another dozen companies are fighting for the tiny amount of business that remains.

Fixing Dell may be a long shot, but it certainly has no chance to happen with Michael Dell as its CEO.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The guidance looks pretty bad too.  Dell is targeting growth of only being up 2% to 4% sequentially and that implies revenues of $14.7 billion to $15 billion rather than the $15.42 billion expected. Ouch!

Dell said that Enterprise Solutions and Services revenue grew about 2% year over year to $4.5 billion.  The company further noted that enterprise solutions and services businesses now account for 50 percent of its gross margin.

Large Enterprise revenue was $4.4 billion in the quarter, a drop of 3%; Public revenue was $3.5 billion, a drop of 4%; Small and Medium Business revenue grew 4 percent to $3.5 billion; Consumer revenue was $3 billion, a drop of 12%.

Here is a breakdown by region: Asia-Pacific and Japan revenue was flat but China increased 9%. EMEA revenue was down 1% and Americas was down 7%. Revenue in the BRIC countries increased 4 percent.

Dell ended the quarter with $17.2 billion in cash and investments against a market capitalization rate of $26.5 billion.  Shares closed up 0.7% at $15.08, but the stock is now down almost 8% at $13.75 in the after-hours session.

JON C. OGG

Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M) reported earnings earlier this week and beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines. The company’s stock still got beaten down on a weak forecast, and that is what happened to both Nordstrom and Kohl’s as well. Saks Inc. (NYSE: SKS) reports next Wednesday and the consensus estimates call for EPS of $0.18 on revenues of $764.4 million. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) also reports next Wednesday and is expected to post an EPS loss of -$0.10 on revenues of $3.48 billion.

A beat, though, doesn’t look like it will mean much. What matters now to investors is guidance. Macy’s guided full-year EPS below the consensus estimate and got whacked. Kohl’s guided second-quarter EPS to $0.96-$1.02, below the consensus estimate of $1.11. Nordstrom reiterated its full-year EPS guidance at $3.30-$3.45, below the consensus estimate of $3.48. That’s just not good enough. Dillard’s did the smart thing and did not offer any information on guidance.

Kohl’s shares are down -0.4% just before noon today, at $48.47 in a 52-week range of $42.14-$57.39. Nordstrom’s shares are down -2.8% at $52.02 in a 52-week range of $37.28-$57.75.

Dillard’s shares are up 8.3% at $71.70, after posting a new 52-week high of $71.97 earlier this morning. The previous range was $38.99-$67.22. Dillard’s same-store sales report for May could reinforce the company’s new growth pattern — or turn it south again. Dillard’s offered no hints, so all’s well today.

Paul Ausick

The Thursday disclosure of a loss of about $2 billion due to egregious failures in risk management now puts J.P. Morgan Chase in the same league as Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) and Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C).  Jamie Dimon has been the most vocal bank executive out there and this is not exactly going to help Dimon in any of his future arguments against more and more bank regulations.

Simon Johnson at MIT’s Sloan School of Management is shown here calling for the possibility of a resignation of Jamie Dimon.  Johnson went on to note that if any other company lost this much then the person responsible would be forced to resign.  He did note that it is not going to happen in banking where regulators move to oust Jamie Dimon.  Johnson is one of the voices calling for the break-up of the big banks

Dimon noted that this trade did not violate the Volcker Rule but it did violate the Dimon Principle.  What happens when your hedges are wrong hedges?  The loss could cost another $1 billion over the next quarter or two as well as the trade was called flawed synthetic credit derivatives which are volatile.

So, back to this call for a Dimon resignation.  Dimon remains one of the top executives out there in banking and in corporate America.  He was recently cleared to lift the common stock dividend and to buy back stock.  Dimon always said that he would buy stock back when its price made sense to do.  A drop of almost 8% down to $37.60 takes this banking stock down to prices not seen since February 16, 2012.  The dividend-adjusted closing price at the end of 2011 was $32.80.

There is another call for Dimon’s role of Chairman and CEO to be split as well.  AFSCME sent out an email noting, “After JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon lost $2 Billion in risky trading, today, AFSCME issued a renewed call for the shareholders of JPM to end Dimon’s reign as Chairman and CEO and adopt an independent board chair.”  In short, the call is keep Dimon on as CEO but to bring in a new Chairman of the Board that is independent of the company.

Congressman Barney Frank (co-author of Dodd-Frank) has publicly said, “JP Morgan Chase, entirely without any help from the government has lost, in this one set of transactions, five times the amount they claim financial regulation is costing them. The argument that financial institutions do not need the new rules to help them avoid the irresponsible actions that led to the crisis of 2008 is at least $2 billion harder to make today.”

Jamie Dimon may have taken a body blow here, but the notion that this will cause his resignation seems very unlikely.  The next risk is the pending downgrade of more than 100 of the top global banks from Moody’s.

FBR was one of the firms which downgraded J.P. Morgan shares this Friday and the target was taken down to $37 from $50 previously.

JON C. OGG

The company is also calling this coming year a year it breaks away from the pack with a very different profile than the traditional game companies and capabilities. It also noted that none of the company’s new digital competitors can match EA. The video game giant further noted 20% non-GAAP EPS growth in fiscal 2012, and it now expects over 30% growth in 2013, based upon the midpoint of own guidance.

In this past quarter, EA generated net revenue of $977 million, and that was slightly ahead of its guidance of $925 to $975 million. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.17 was in line with its guidance of $0.10 to $0.20 EPS. Thomson Reuters had estimates of $0.16 EPS and $958.5 million in revenues.

Guidance is being offered for a year out to its February 2013 year-end: $4.3 billion in sales and $1.05 to $1.20 EPS (both non-GAAP of course) against Thomson Reuters estimates of $1.12 EPS and $4.5 billion in sales.

Next quarter guidance is being put at -$0.45 to -$0.40 EPS and $500 million in revenue (both also non-GAAP) against Thomson Reuters estimates of -$0.33 EPS and $577.9 million in sales.

EA shares closed up $0.01 at $15.13 against a 52-week range of $14.48 to $26.13; shares are down about 7.3% at $13.90 in the after-hours session.

JON C. OGG

Revenue was in line with estimates at $1.71 billion.  For 2012 Cognizant forecasts $7.34 billion in revenue and profits of $3.36 per share, and that is actually under the Thomson Reuters targets of $7.54 billion in sales  and $3.45 per share in earnings.

Today’s news should not be a surprise to most investors,  Indian IT-outsourcing outfits such as Wipro Ltd. (NYSE: WIT) and Infosys Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY) as sector leaders.  Now it is Cognizant’s turn for the drop in shares and this one is down over 15% a $59.09 and the 8 million shares traded early this morning is nearly 300% above its normal trading volume.

Wipro shares are down 1% at $9.33 and Infosys shares are down 1.2% at $45.09 in New York trading of the ADRs.

Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) remains ‘challenged’ with its shares at $27.00 versus a 52-week range of $22.80 to $45.14.

JON C. OGG

There is a larger question to ask outside of what may be a domestic growth story and what lies beyond the retirement of its super-star CEO James Skinner.  What about that Latin American version of McDonald’s?  This is where Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ARCO) comes into play.  The name translates from Spanish to “Golden Arches” in English.

This stock was already falling this week but the stock is literally getting gutted to a post-IPO low after its earnings report. As of the end of 2011 it operated or franchised some 1,840 McDonald’s-branded restaurants with over 90,000 employees serving approximately 4.3 million customers a day.  You can argue that the weak U.S. jobs data might translate to more weakness in Latin America, but many of the key growth markets in Latin America were already seeing slower growth on their own ahead of the U.S. economic data weakening.

Arcos Dorados reported earnings Friday and showed that first quarter revenues gained 11.5% to $921.6 million but that would have been up 16.6% on a constant currency basis.  The company said that its systemwide comparable sales growth was 11.6%.  Net income fell 28.4% to $25.4 million, due to higher depreciation expense, higher capital spending, higher foreign exchange losses, along with higher tax charges, and lower gains from the sale of property and equipment.

Cash and cash equivalents were $144.3 million and its total financial debt was $540.1 million as of March 31, 2012.  Arcos Dorados added 86 restaurants during the last 12-month period.  It was last month that the company decided to initiate a dividend and that payment would currently come to about 1.6% now that the share price is under $15.00.

The prior post-IPO range was $16.79 to $29.43 and now the stock is down over 50% from its highs.  As of mid-Friday the stock is down about 18% at $14.00 with volume already running over 200% above normal with some 5.1 million shares traded.

Today’s reaction in Arcos Dorados is very confusing on the surface.  This was one super-hot IPO in 2011.  The IPO came out at $17.00 per share, well above the expected range of $13.00 to $15.00 per share and this stock rose more than $4.00 on its debut to only eventually go up to above $29.00 at the peak.  The sell-off sure feels like something worse than beating revenues but missing on earnings is at work.

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM) has also been soft and the 1.5% drop today to $70.90 is down from an all-time of $74.44.  Yum! has its growth story tied more to China than Latin America.

You might not know that the DJIA was recently at year highs for 2012.  This is one of those days where even the defensive stocks are not holding up well.  Why is “Sell in May and go away!” ringing such a strong bell right now?

JON C. OGG

The company said that its own surveys generate estimates that its U.S. Keurig Single Cup Brewer installed base has increased to between 10.8 and 12.2 million brewers in use in households as of March 2012.  Cash and cash equivalents rose to $146.0 million at March 24, 2012 from $33.7 million at March 26, 2011.

Total net sales for 2012 are expected to be 45% to 50% higher than 2011 to $3.8 billion to $4.0 billion; earnings are now put at $2.40 to $2.50 per share versus estimates of $2.67 EPS and $4.27 billion in sales.

Shares closed down 0.4% at $49.52 today, but the after-hours reaction is down an awful 37% at $31.13 in active trading after its stock reopened from a trading halt.  The prior 52-week trading range was $39.42 to $115.98.

Frankly, some of these figures look so bad that it required double-checking just to make sure that the estimates and comparable earnings reports were on the right company.

Herb Greenberg on CNBC has been pointing out the caution and controversy in this company for months and months.  Today’s news is not going to cause Greenberg and other skeptics from deciding to warm up to the name.

The numbers are bad enough here that it may make some wonder about the partnership with Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX), for better or worse and for right or wrong.  Starbucks closed up 0.4% at $57.92 and shares are indicated slightly lower (less than 1%) in light after-hours trading volume.

JON C. OGG