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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is reporting its fiscal third quarter financial results Monday, July 21, after the close. The question is not only what Apple will report, but also how the Street will react, and most important, is it a buy ahead of earnings?

In terms of numbers, according to Thompson Financial's survey of analysts, Apple is expected to report net income of $972.6 million, or $1.08 per share, on sales of $7.4 billion. That's an 18.9% profit growth and a 37% sales growth.

Investors will be interested in the following:

iPhone sales numbers for Q3 may not interest investors that much, as the new 3G iPhone was released in fiscal Q4, and that is expected to be the main driver of iPhone sales going forward. The launch, despite its technical glitches was very successful, but investors might be concerned over Apple's ability to supply the demand. Already German and many U.S. stores have experienced shortages.

Most investors probably think that PC sales in the U.S. are a bit slow these days because of the recession. Now, they can sleep better because industry figures for Q2 show they are right. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Gartner Inc. said world-wide PC shipments grew 16% in the period, with U.S. shipments growing 4.2%."

The only real warning sign in the data is that units sales growth is slowing some in Asia. Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) still have the largest market shares worldwide while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shipments grew 38% in the U.S. during the period.

The important news is that Asia may not be able to make up for slowing U.S. sales growth. If formerly hot markets like China and India are not doing terribly well, the entire PC industry is in for a choppy time.

The data contradicts information from the recent Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) earnings. Not only is the company doing well, it said the rest of the year looked bright. Someone must be doing OK selling PCs and servers somewhere. The Gartner research appears to say otherwise.

For investors in PC and chip companies, it appears the information about how the industry is doing has become confused. Now they can join shareholders in almost every other sector of the market where no one seems to have a handle on what is happening.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Classic blue-chip tech company IBM (NYSE: IBM), whose colleagues include Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), is due to report earnings on Thursday after the market closes up shop. What are investors looking for? Growth, of course. Should they expect it?

Well, according to Trey Thoelcke's earnings data, Wall Street is looking for IBM to deliver earnings per share around the $1.82 mark for the second quarter. Revenues should be near $25.9 billion. If Big Blue hits both of these numbers, it would show that the company is coming along fine and that the current level of the stock price is justified. Of course, Wall Street doesn't want IBM to merely hit those numbers. Oh no, that would be too easy. Wall Street wants IBM to beat those expectations. In terms of the bottom line, there is positive recent history for an earnings beat. The company handily beat estimates in the last two quarters, and met expectations in the two quarters previous to that time frame.

Will the company beat expectations? I think it will. The momentum seems to be favorable for such an outcome. In fact, in a relative sense, the stock isn't signaling a terrible report by any stretch of the imagination. The 52-week low is $97.04 and the 52-week high is $129.99. IBM closed up on Wednesday over 2% to a share price of $125.94. Doesn't sound like the market is worried, does it?

Sun Microsystems' (NASDAQ: JAVA) preliminary numbers for the fourth quarter sparked an after-sessions rally on Tuesday. The tech entity said it should see somewhere between $3.7 billion and $3.8 billion for the top line. Earnings per diluted share will come in between $0.25 and $0.35 on a non-GAAP basis. Gross margin should be at least 44%.

Wall Street was apparently happy that Sun didn't expect an earnings bomb, according to this Reuters article. Understandable, considering the current state of the economy. It looks like Sun has an okay chance of meeting or beating earnings expectations. Reuters says that analysts are looking for 10 cents per share on a GAAP basis. Management is looking to do somewhere between 5 cents and 15 cents per share. It's too bad the range wasn't more narrow, but I guess the theme here is that if business is at least this good, then the shares are a buy.

As for me, I'm not sure I see the merit of the euphoria. Sure, things could have been worse, but that doesn't mean I want to buy Sun here. The stock has done horribly this year, losing 50% of its value year-to-date (at least before the rally). I think investors should be very careful about chasing values during these bearish times. It's hard to say how bad the recession will be, and how it will affect the tech names. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) have seen their stocks pressured by sellers. If the shares of those blue chips are having problems, I can't see why I'd want to chase Sun Microsystems.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.

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Topnotch schools, good jobs, affordable housing, low crime, an active outdoor culture help Plymouth, Minnesota to replace Middleton, Wisconsin on top of Money Magazine's annual list of the Best Places to Live in America. Other places in the top 10 include Ft. Collins, Colorado, Naperville, Illinois, Irvine, California, Franklin Township, NJ, Norman, Oklahoma, Round Rock, Texas, Columbia/Ellicott City, Maryland, Overland Park, Kansas and Fishers, Indiana.
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Also: Texas is Home to Most Cities on Best Places List

QLogic Corporation (NASDAQ: QLGC) provides the controller chips, host adapters, fabric switches and management software used by storage area networks. Products include fiber channel and iSCSI host bus adapters, InfiniBand host channel adapters, fiber channel switches, InfiniBand switches, and storage routers for bridging fiber channel and iSCSI networks. Customers include Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and IBM (NYSE: IBM).

The firm pleased investors earlier in the week, when it boosted its fiscal Q1 EPS guidance from 26-28 cents to 30-31 cents and its Q1 revenue view from $154-$158 million to $166-$168 million. The new ranges topped consensus Street estimates of 27 cents and $156.40 million. Caris & Company subsequently improved its rating on the issue to "above average" and raised its price target to $18.

Avocent Corporation (NASDAQ: AVCT) makes connectivity and management products for information technology (IT) infrastructure. Offerings include analog and digital keyboard, video, and mouse switching systems; serial connectivity devices; various extensions; and remote access devices. These allow IT administrators to manage servers, serially controlled devices, wireless devices, desktop computers, and mobile devices from a single console, providing network management and administration. Clients include Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and IBM (NYSE: IBM).

Investors were pleased late last month, when the firm announced that it would cut about 5% of its global workforce, in order to focus on areas of growth. The restructuring will involve the reduction of certain R&D efforts and the transfer of some support operations to a recently established regional hub in Singapore. As a result of the changes, management boosted Q2 revenue guidance from $150-$154 million to $155-$158 million ($152.17M consensus).

Taleo Corporation (NASDAQ: TLEO) offers software that allows businesses to efficiently manage their staffing processes. Products help to automate recruitment, background screening, regulatory compliance, skills assessment and tracking of professional, hourly, and temporary employees. The firm's professional services division provides implementation and technical support. Customers range from small businesses to global enterprises. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) and Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) are among Taleo's large-cap clients.

Investors were pleased last month, when the company affirmed its Q2 EPS and revenue guidance figures. Management also said it expected this week's acquisition of talent management software maker Vurv Technology to add to its 2008 results, projecting EPS of 62 cents (60 cent consensus) and revenues of $175-$177 million ($162.8M consensus).

Jabil Circuit (NYSE: JBL) is a leading electronics manufacturing services firm, providing comprehensive design, manufacturing and product management services to global electronics and technology companies. The firm works for original equipment makers in the automotive, storage, medical, networking, telecommunications, computer and consumer products industries. Top customers include Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK).

The company had good news for investors earlier in the week, when it reported fiscal Q3 EPS of 26 cents and revenues of $3.09 billion. Analysts had been looking for 20 cents and $3.08 billion. Management also guided Q4 EPS to 29-33 cents (29 cent consensus) and Q4 revenues to $3.2-$3.3 billion ($3.19B consensus). Credit Suisse subsequently reiterated its "neutral" rating on the stock, but RBC Capital Markets repeated an "outperform" recommendation and Needham said "buy" again.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) certainly has a major footprint in the small business space with such things as PCs, servers and, of course, printers.

But HP is expanding its offerings. For example, last year the company purchased Logoworks and is now putting out some useful eBooks.

One is called the 9 Steps to Outstanding Market Success.

No doubt, it is colorful with many useful checklists, tips, examples and worksheets. Some of the topics include: social media, branding, search engine marketing, online marketing and so on. Ultimately, it's a good way to spark ideas to enhance your business.

Every month HP will release a new chapter (so far, it's on chapter five). The last chapter will be on October 15.

All in all, its helpful information – and not too overwhelming. And you can check it out at the small biz section of HP.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Before the bell: Oil, financials woes send futures lower

Before the bell: Futures mixed after selloff

Coventry Health (NYSE: CVH) shares were down nearly 17% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the managed-care provider lowered estimates for second-quarter and full-year earnings due to disappointing April and May results. Wachovia downgraded CVH to Market Perform from Outperform. Other healthcare stocks felt the pressure and were down in after-hours or premarket trading: UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH) -7%, Aetna (NYSE: AET) -9.9%, WellPoint (NYSE: WLP) -6%, Humana (NYSE: HUM) -5% and Cigna (NYSE: CI) -5%.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Long Island, NY's Astoria Financial Corp (NYSE: AF) has found a novel way to reduce the number of its nonperforming loans by changing its internal policy on when mortgages are classified on its books as troubled, the Wall Street Journal reported. By counting home loans as non performing when the borrower misses at least three payments, not two, Astoria reduced its non-performers to $69M from $106M in three months.
• The Wall Street Journal also reported that the indictments of Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, two former Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers, are expected to cite a personal e-mail suggesting the funds were "toast," four days before they told investors they had little to worry about. JP Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) has said it will cover the legal costs of the fund managers.
• Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) is set to reorganize its printer unit. The Wall Street Journal said that the unit's five business units will be cut down to three to become more efficient at adapting to a marketplace in which consumers are relying less on printing.
• According to people close to the situation, the Financial Times reported that Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc's (NYSE: BUD) board of directors is planning to meet this week to discuss the $46B bid from rival brewer InBev.

In order to drive up market share in those niche PC categories, Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is joining the fray of the miniature laptop PC with the new "E" and "E Slim." Wow, those are catchy names. Many manufacturers offer ultraportable mobile PCs designs, but many have also failed miserably. Now Dell wants to get in on the action of those who would love to purchase a high-margin, tiny laptop for all those internet tasks. These are dubbed "netbooks."

Dell joins fellow competitors Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) and Taiwan's Asus in making a tiny laptop PC that uses flash memory instead of an actual hard drive and comes with a display that is less than 10 inches measured diagonally (standard laptop screens are 15.4 inches). HP unveiled its miniature notebook just a month ago, so Dell did not waste a bit of time here. In addition to the "E," Dell's "E Slim" takes aim at the larger, ultra-thin laptop market made famous by Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) MacBook Air, and followed up with HP's recently announced Voodoo Envy.

What are all these manufacturers trying to do with all the slim-n-thin and tiny laptop designs? First of all, find some margin playroom now that the popular laptop PC category has seen shrunken retail prices as of late, although the Dell "E" will start at $299 when it debuts later this summer. Also, to continue finding those niches, there is pent-up demand. The "pocketable" laptop PC has been forever elusive, but some of these designs are getting very close to finding the perfect balance between usability and portability.

In a sign that computer maker Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) isn't sitting on its laurels as the world's largest PC manufacturer, the company announced over 50 new products yesterday. This was HP's largest announcement from its Personal Storage Group (PSG) division ever in terms of quantity of products introduced.

HP also introduced the world's thinnest laptop computer, in a swipe at Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) MacBook Air. Probably the most important announcement was that HP's professional and consumer-level laptop PCs were all going to be refreshed. A similar move about 18 months ago in its consumer laptop designs and retail partnerships helped push HP past competitor Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) as the largest PC manufacturer in the world, and now it's upping the game again by getting all-new designs to market at all the relevant screen sizes (14", 15" and 17").

With Taiwanese competitor Acer selling a ton of laptop PCs recently and Dell resurgent on the consumer side of its business (including retail availability), HP definitely does not want to cede any of the market share it has that has helped it become the largest overall global PC maker. The company currently has 35%+ of the consumer laptop PC market, and with all-news designs coming soon, it may be able to keep hold of that number. But Acer and Dell, the second and third-largest makers of laptop PCs, sure won't make it easy.