Glimmer of hope for the PC business
Flextronics, a contract manufacturer of electronic parts and equipment. They pre-announced a revenue and earnings shortfall for the current quarter and brought in expectations for the out quarters by a bit. Their stock -- as well as the stock of other contract manufacturing companies in the space -- is down heavy today on the news. Speculation -- by none other than the normally estimable Jim Seymour of thestreet.com -- is that this is bad for wireless, telco adn PCs, but look at this note from SG Cowen:
PC And PC Peripherals – FLEX noted that its PC, PC peripheral (HPQ printers is a customer), and enclosure business was robust. FLEX’s relatively positive comments re PCs somewhat contrary to comments from HPQ when it reported in May and data from SIA last week which showed microprocessors –20% Q/Q. HPQ today and INTC later this week should shed more light on PCs. We believe incremental news will be more consistent w/SIA, HPQ than FLEX.
EPS $0.12E vs $0.12 Street. Rev est
$2.6B. CC 5:30pmET.
Certainly the bit about microprocessors down 20%Q/Q is not a good thing, but I wonder if that's revenue or units. It goes w/o saying that HP/CPQ (HPQ?) is just not a viable proxy for PC sales anymore. We KNOW that DELL is eating their lunch and share right now, so the HPQ weakness is not necessarily a reflection of market weakness.
10:26:41 AM 
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