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

Part of the reason for the lackluster stock performance before Jobs’s retirement may have been worries about his health, which were reasonable. But Apple had breakout quarters after Jobs’s death, and they were unlike anything the consumer electronics company had posted before. Critics of Cook argue that the products that drove these earnings where Jobs’s inventions. But Cook would have been blamed for poor results if the numbers had gone the other way. If Cook would have gotten the blame, then he should get a great deal of the credit. Apple did not break down after Jobs died. If anything, its prospects got better, at least if revenue and margins are used as measures.

Cook will not get out from under Jobs’s shadow entirely until investors are convinced there are no more future product introductions with which Jobs had involvement. That means Cook will not get credit for the iPhone 5, which Jobs supposedly had under development before he died. Maybe the iPhone 6 and iPad 4 will not considered products that Jobs “invented.” The question of invention trumps whether Apple is well run in almost every other way. This includes, particularly, marketing and manufacturing. Apple’s products sell themselves, maybe. But it only takes one slip in the supply chain, on the assembly line or in the early marketing of a new product to throw the Apple machine off center.

Cook already has proven that Apple has a strong steward, no matter how long it takes the market to catch up to that realization.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Take a look at any chart and you will see that Best Buy shares hit a low not seen since back in 2009 when every stock tied to retail and technology had hit the ‘free fall’ button.  This stock hit a low of $17.53 this morning and its prior 52-week range was $17.84 to $32.85.

Somehow Amazon remains the winner here.  Many buyers go to Best Buy to interact with consumer electronics and then turn around and buy the item online from a competitor to avoid sales tax and/or to pay a lower price.

Analysts still have a consensus price target around $25.00 for Best Buy, but for now that should not be trusted.  And what about that $3.59 EPS target for this year at Best Buy from Thomson Reuters?  Or the $3.72 EPS target for next year from Thomson Reuters?  If those were to remain true then Best Buy trades at only 5-times this year’s earnings and under 4.9-times next year’s earnings estimates.

The reality is that Best Buy has no CEO, it lost its founder, it is suffering from margin compression, and it is often cited as losing more and more of the potential customer base. BB&T Capital Markets also downgraded Best Buy shares to Hold from Buy just this morning, although admittedly that is just a very late downgrade.

The one thing which may actually act as a slingshot on any news that “lass bad” is that Best Buy has close to 54 million shares in its short interest per the most recent data.  It is hard to get excited that short sellers may drive up the price if the news is not just dismal.

JON C. OGG

The announcement is a coup for Yahoo!’s interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, although the buyout must have been in the works long before he began his job earlier this month. What Yahoo! did not say as its reported on the agreement is what it will do with the money. That will be as crucial to Yahoo!’s share price, and perhaps its future, as anything the company has done in the past year — with the possible exception of changing CEOs twice.

Yahoo!’s market cap is just short of $19 billion, so the firm certainly could offer a dividend. That will not satisfy shareholders who have concerns about the viability of the portal company over the longer term. Yahoo! could buy back close to 20% of its shares and automatically raise its earnings per share. Shareholders may not be impressed with that move. Share buybacks rarely have been a way for shareholders to gain long-term value in troubled companies.

Beyond a these traditional uses of capital to enhance shareholder value are others that are more radical. One is a special dividend. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) did this in 2004. AOL (NYSE: AOL) plans to make a similar move with the just over $1 billion it got from the license and sales of some of its patents to Microsoft. Each was part of a plan to get cash on its balance sheet to shareholders immediately. The sum per share, however, in Yahoo!’s case would be relatively modest. Yahoo! has more than 1.2 billion shares outstanding.

If none of these is the route Yahoo! takes, the board and management are left with the option of making a quick M&A deal to enhance the company’s position as a content company. Yahoo!’s weakness in social media is obvious. But the $4 billion it has left after taxes may not be enough to buy a social media firm. Twitter, for example, has a valuation of at least $8 billion, based on the last time it raised money. If Yahoo! could raise additional cash to make an offer, a bidding war would ensue. Yahoo! does not have access to the capital necessary to win an auction. There are plenty of smaller social media companies, but not many that would make Yahoo! a force in the sector.

Yahoo! could also buy a large traditional media company and try to strengthen that company’s online presence. Yahoo! has the traffic to make such a plan work. Among the corporations it could afford is Gannett (NYSE: GCI), the largest newspaper company in the United States. It has a market cap of $3 billion. But, aside from Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B), who can afford to own newspapers as a hobby? Not a single analyst on Wall St. believes that papers have much of a long-term future.

Yahoo! is about to have a lot of money. Along with that will be a several options for what to do with it, none of which is terribly attractive.

Douglas A. McIntyre

But a CEO wedding announcement on the following day? The answer that new shareholders should be concerned with is simple: “You knew you had a founding CEO who was able to do whatever he wants, even though he is now playing with your money. Now you know he WILL do whatever he wants whenever he wants.”

Magically announcing a wedding at what was supposed to be a graduation party is one thing. But within a day of an IPO of this magnitude? Shareholders now have every reason to be concerned. Oh, and by the way, if you do not like it your only way to make a statement is to sell your shares. You have no vote in the company at all because Zuckerberg has well over 50% of the share votes either under ownership or under control.

It is hard to imagine that Zuck would go take a three-week honeymoon, but he could do that at some point and the poor Facebook shareholders would just have to sit there and take it. Again, your only vote as a shareholder is to sell your shares. Even then, do you think a guy now worth $20 billion or so really cares?

We warned you that there were 18 big risks in chasing Facebook ahead of the IPO, and all of these risks are still present. We never thought that there were two more: 19) CEO decides to distract himself with his own marriage status as just a small deal, and 20) CEO could go take a long vacation/honeymoon immediately.

Who knows what Zuckerberg’s living situation will be now and who knows if he and his now-wife will decide to go take a great vacation and honeymoon. I would if I was in his shoes, at some point, but not the weekend after an IPO. Shareholders should care what this means, but they better remember over and over that they were warned about the corporate governance here as a controlled entity (over and over, and over).

As of 6:50 PM EST on Sunday night there have been “853,293 people like this” on Zuckerberg’s Facebook status page. If any of those people are shareholders liking this, well let’s just say that they have a conflict of interest over “liking” their own money.

Barron’s wrote about the new downside risks about Facebook shares falling if underwriters choose not to support the IPO like they did on Friday at the $38.00 share price. That was without considering the CEO would sneak out and get married the same weekend.

JON C. OGG

Levinsohn also promoted executives to take over Yahoo!’s large global media operations. This was his job until recently. The action, by which Levinsohn gives up his previous position, is a sign he plans to stay as CEO.

Levinsohn also folded e-commerce operations, the core of Thompson’s turnaround plans, back into the company’s traditional structure.

Douglas A. McIntyre

News on Wednesday night showed that Chief Financial Officer Mark Murphy is leaving the company to rejoin a position at Praxair.  The news is on the heels of previous report showing a major loss due to poor solar materials sales. Does the notion that MEMC named Brian Wuebbels as executive vice president and CFO help?  Not really, even if Murphy will act as a “consultant” during the transition period.

Losing a CFO is not as bad as losing a founder and not as bad as losing a CEO, but the problem with losing a CFO is that Wall Street assumes that the CFO has lost faith in the future of the company. In some cases, it could mean something far worse.  With MEMC shares having fallen from over $90 during teh solar boom down to under $2.00 it is easy to wonder if things are going from just awful to even worse.

So, here is where we cannot help but wonder about MEMC’s future.  Thomson Reuters expects a loss of -$0.10 EPS in 2012 on sales of $2.6 billion.  But almost magically in 2013 the consensus is back up to $0.45 EPS on $2.83 billion in sales.  The revenues in 2011 were $2.715 billion, in 2010 they were $2.239 billion, and 2009 revenues were $1.163 billion.  The problem is that sales in the solar sector are getting harder and harder to come by and the solar sector is in total disarray.  The company’s latest loss and decline in revenues also reflected weak demand in the semiconductor wafer markets.  Yep, MEMC is facing a war on two fronts and its non-GAAP margins are getting squeezed.

The sector leaders are looking like hell frozen over.  First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) is effectively at all-time lows if you discount a small 2% gain today.  SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWR) is down over 75% since Total SA (NYSE: TOT) bought the controlling interest.

If the company was on the verge of a great turnaround then the CFO would seemingly not have pulled the ripcord on the way down here.  The company has what looks to be ample cash reserves to fund operations, but it also has significant amounts of long-term debt. This situation just feels like it is one which is going from awful to far worse.

MEMC is in serious trouble.  Still, it is one of these outfits that has enough cash to fund operations for probably quite some time, but its core businesses are challenged and the company has so far been unable to get its operating costs in order.  It has also forecast a weaker demand for semiconductor materials in 2012 as well as a lower price per watt in solar.  Our big concern is that the projections may have been based entirely upon the CFO forecasts just a week or so ago, and his departure would bring even the lower guidance into question.

For whatever this is worth, Wunderlich Securities cut its target down to $1.00 after it maintained a SELL rating after the most recent earnings.

It is too soon to declare that MEMC will be a total implosion.  It is even possible that there could be a turnaround of major proportion coming here.  Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case any time in the immediate future.

So you tell me in a poll, no “I don’t know” answers allowed…

JON C. OGG

MEMC named Brian Wuebbels as its new CFO. Wuebbels has been with MEMC in various roles since 2007. His previous experience came at Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON) and General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE).

Investors are treating the switch as yet another signal that MEMC is a sinking ship. Shares are off more than -18%, at $1.74 after posting a new 52-week low of $1.67 earlier. The previous range was $2.07-$10.64. After the announcement last night shares only fell by a penny. That situation changed fast this morning.

Paul Ausick

Later this morning at CP’s shareholder meeting more changes are sure to take place. In the same press release, the company said that five other directors, in addition to Green, would not stand for re-election. That means that there are now just 16 candidates for 16 available board seats. William Ackman’s slate of candidates will take seven of the available seats, and Pershing Square Capital Management will, for all intents and purposes, be running the railroad.

Last Sunday Ackman said that of the 36% of votes cast at that time, his slate had 97%. CP’s shareholders were behind Ackman’s criticisms of the company, as were three major proxy advisory firms. Ackman had also enlisted the help of the former head of the Canadian National Railway Co. (NYSE: CNI), Hunter Harrison, who is now the likeliest candidate to head CP.

The railroad’s shares are inactive in the pre-market. Shares closed at $74.87 last night, in a 52-week range of $44.74-$79.91.

Paul Ausick

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was a large gain by Appaloosa Management, with a gain of more than 500,000 shares up to 685,000 shares worth some $303 million. This of course was worth more in April. Farallon put up a new position of just over 192,000 worth some $116 million. Janus only lowered its stake by 0.5% and Apple is still its largest holding at over $3.8 billion, while Vanguard lifted its stake by about 5% worth over $23 billion.

Caesars Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ: CZR) was a strange position on the surface, but easy to explain later. Paulson & Co. was shown to have lifted its stake to 12.37 million shares from NO SHARES at the end of 2011. The problem is that Paulson owned Caesars shares already before the IPO but it was not public before the end of 2011.

Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) was a 2.4 million share stake by Greenlight Capital (under David Einhorn) worth $72 million, and that was a new position. With an activism flare, maybe this can light some fire under what has been a dead tech-value stock. Another firm, Highbridge Capital Management LLC, added more than 1 million shares as a new position in the first quarter.

DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) was a key addition of Warren Buffett’s Ted Weschler who grew his stake to 6,000,000 from almost 2.7 million shares. This was a doubling of the stake, but we would note that this stock has slid 10% since the end of the quarter. The overall position may be closer to break-even here, but this has a huge portion of the kidney dialysis market as of today.

Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) was a surprise for us considering that we thought Warren Buffett’s new manager Todd Coombs would have added to this position rather than cutting it. Maybe the valuation premium just became too much. The March 31 stake was 3.63 million shares versus the 4.497 million shares at the end of 2011.

El Paso Corporation (NYSE: EP) saw more than one move higher. Farallon Capital added another 50% or so to end with 22.49 million shares worth $235 million in the first quarter; Paulson & Co. doubled its stake in the first quarter to 8 million shares worth over $118 million.

Encana Corporation (NYSE: ECA) is a standout because it looks small, but it is a good whale watching stock. BP Capital’s T. Boone Pickens initiated a new position of more than 1.13 million shares worth some $22.3 million.

Express Scripts Holding Co. (NASDAQ: ESRX) was a very large gain by Farallon Capital, where the position rose to over 5.65 million shares as of March 31 from only 1.17 million shares at the end of 2011. Paulson & Co. also doubled its stake in the first quarter to 3.24 million shares worth over $87 million shares. With the merger now closed, others have been looking at this despite Walgreen’s issues.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) was another new position of 10 million shares worth more than $250 million. Frankly, we might have guess that Ford would have been chosen. Is it possible that this was a “politically motivated or influenced” as Buffett is such a supporter of Obama? That admittedly seems like a stretch, but if we were looking for auto exposure it would have probably been with Ford.

SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) saw SAC Capital grow from only over 3 million shares at the end of 2011 to 98.2 million shares worth almost $217 million in the first quarter, SAC wheels and deals in shares all the time, so they could have been in and out of a lot more or less shares before, during, and after that point.

Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS) scored a new large stake in the first quarter by Maverick Capital. The new holdings came to over 5.8 million shares worth some $161 million at the end of the quarter, likely as an “Apple play.”

United Continental Holdings (NYSE: UAL) was hard not to miss in the whale hunting as well as Appaloosa grew its position by 500% or so up to over 7.9 million shares worth over $146 million.

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JON C. OGG