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From Briefing.com: 4:35PM Stocks Slip After GE's Outlook Lowered : Stocks chopped along in a relatively narrow range until economic bellwether General Electric (GE 15.96, -1.43) had its credit outlook lowered late in the session. The announcement induced selling pressure, which took the stock market to a loss of 3.0% before it finished with a loss of 2.1%... Shares of General Electric fell to a multiweek low after Standard & Poor's lowered the company's credit outlook to Negative from Stable, which is not the same as an actual downgrade. GE is one of only a handful of companies to carry a coveted AAA rating. However, Standard & Poor's did indicate there is a one-in-three possibility of a downgrade within the next two years. General Electric traded as a laggard, weighing on the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average... Exxon Mobil (XOM 76.90, -4.16), which also carries a AAA credit rating, was a laggard, too. Exxon's stock dropped markedly as crude futures contracts plunged amid ongoing demand concerns. Integrated oil companies finished the session 5.9%, while oil and gas drillers dropped 11.3%... Though OPEC announced yesterday production cuts intended to bolster prices by realigning supply with demand, oil prices have gone on the slide this week. January crude fell as much as 10.2% to take out a multiyear low of $35.98 per barrel before settling at $36.74 per barrel; contracts for January delivery expire after tomorrow's close. Upon the expiration of the January contracts, February will become the front month. February crude closed at $42.06, down 5.7%... Materials (-4.0%) also traded with weakness as Freeport McMoRan (FCX 23.32, -2.69) dropped more than 10%. Its loss followed weakness in metals... February gold slipped $7.90 to settle at $860.60 per ounce, while and March silver shed $0.30 to settle at $11.12 per ounce. Copper was also down with March contracts slipping $0.072 to $1.302 per ounce... Weakness in commodities was exacerbated by a resurgent dollar. The U.S. dollar was able to snap its recent losing streak by climbing 0.7% this session. It is still down 5.0% for the week, though, as currency traders assess the country's extraordinary spending plans and weak economic conditions... Though a stronger dollar bodes well for U.S. consumers, it can dampen earnings prospects from multinational companies depending on foreign markets for growth. Nike (NKE 52.69, +2.05) and FedEx (FDX 62.60, -1.37), both global companies, posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings results ahead of the opening bell. Their results have been helped by international markets, but economic headwinds will challenge their performance in the future... As such, President-elect Obama is reportedly planning an $850 billion economic stimulus plan that would be phased in over the next couple of years... The current White House administration is reportedly planning to provide automakers with aid before Dec. 25. Treasury Secretary Paulson will take the lead in the planning, but details for the plan remain unknown. Separate reports indicated General Motors (GM 3.66, -0.71) and Chrysler reopened merger talks, but GM later denied the claim... In economic Weekly initial jobless claims and continuing claims were down a bit from the prior week, and essentially in-line with economists' expectations. Claims totaled 554,000 and 4.38 million, respectively. The claims numbers can be considered relatively positive since they didn't surpass the estimated levels, which has been the case in previous weeks, but the decrease may suggest some workers have exhausted their jobless benefits since companies continue laying off workers... Dow -2.5%... Nasdaq -1.7%... S&P 500 -2.1%... Nasdaq 100 -1.7%... S&P 400 -1.8%... Russell 2000 -1.5%.

5:11PM Oracle: On call, sees Q3 EPS $0.34-$0.36 (constant currency) vs $0.34 First Call consensus; sees revs up 8-11%, which equates to approx $6.06- $6.23 bln vs $5.84 bln consensus (ORCL) 16.61 -0.13 :

4:33PM Micrel appoints Ray Wallin as co's new Chief Financial Officer (MCRL) 7.34 -0.49 :

4:30PM Palm misses by $0.35, misses on revs (PALM) 2.20 : Reports Q2 (Nov) loss of $0.73 per share, which excludes stock-based compensation, amortization of intangible assets, restructuring charges, impairment of non-current auction rate securities, accretion of series B convertible preferred stock and the non-cash net impact on the tax provision resulting from the increase of the valuation allowance for the Co's U.S. deferred tax, $0.35 worse than the First Call consensus of ($0.38); revenues fell 45.2% year/year to $191.6 mln vs the $207.3 mln consensus.

4:16PM UTStarcom announces a corporate restructuring and initiatives to improve financial performance (UTSI) 1.62 -0.06 : Co announces a series of corporate initiatives that are expected to reduce its annualized operating expenses by more than 25% or greater than $100 mln. The majority of these measures will have been initiated by the end of January 2009 and a significant portion of the savings will be recognized in the first half of 2009. Co initiated actions to wind down its Korea-based handset manufacturing operation whose principal activity is supplying handsets to Personal Communications Devises. This wind down will occur over the next six months to enable co to meet current customer commitments in North America and the process will be complete by July 2009. The Handset segment will continue to supply handsets to the China market. Additionally, the company has initiated actions to disband its Custom Solutions Business Unit by the end of the first quarter 2009. In the fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009 the company will reduce its global employee base by ~10%. This reduction is in addition to the employees impacted by the identified non-core business rationalizations discussed above. In addition, the company also announced that the non-executive members of the board have agreed to a reduction in their board retainers for a period of one year. Furthermore, Peter Blackmore, UTStarcom's CEO and president, and other executive officers have voluntarily agreed to decline their cash bonuses for 2008.

4:13PM Research In Motion reports EPS in-line; guides Q4 EPS above consensus, revs above consensus (RIMM) 38.44 -2.23 : Reports Q3 (Nov) earnings of $0.83 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the First Call consensus of $0.83; revenues rose 7.9% year/year to $2.78 bln vs the $2.81 bln consensus. Co issues upside guidance for Q4, sees EPS of $0.83-0.91 vs. $0.83 consensus; sees Q4 revs of $3.3-3.5 vs. $2.98 bln consensus. Sees gross margins of between 40-41% in Q4. Based on RIMM's current expectations for product mix and device average selling prices, RIMM expects gross margins in fiscal 2010 to be similar to or slightly better than Q4. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 81% for devices, 13% for service, 2% for software and 4% for other revenue. During the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 6.7 mln devices. Approximately 2.6 mln net new BlackBerry subscriber accounts were added in the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the total BlackBerry subscriber account base increased from the prior quarter by approximately 14% to approximately 21 mln. Net subscriber account additions in the fourth quarter are expected to be approximately 2.9 mln.

4:08PM Research In Motion trades to $42.15 in after hours following upside Q4 guidance (RIMM) 38.44 -2.23

4:04PM Oracle reports EPS in-line, misses on revs (ORCL) : Reports Q2 (Nov) earnings of $0.34 per share, excluding non-recurring items, in-line with the First Call consensus of $0.34; revenues rose 5.5% year/year to $5.61 bln vs the $5.84 bln consensus.

4:01PM LSI Logic lowers Q4 revs guidance (LSI) 3.44 -0.33 : Co lowers guidance for Q4 (Dec), sees Q4 (Dec) revs of $570-610 mln, down from $670-710 mln, vs. $681.60 mln First Call consensus. The revised outlook reflects anticipated sales levels that are lower than previously expected due to the weakening global macroeconomic environment. LSI has already begun taking steps to reduce operating expenses as a result of continuing demand uncertainty and expects to maintain tight expense controls for the foreseeable future.

8:02AM O2Micro expects Q4 revenue to be approximately $21-22 mln vs $32.34 mln consensus (OIIM) 2.19 :

6:43AM ASML Holding lowers Q4 rev guidance (ASML) 17.34 : Co announces it has seen a severe deterioration in its order intake due to the global economic crisis. "Never before have we witnessed such a sharp and sudden fall-off in lithography system demand, triggered by an unprecedented mix of falling end-demand for semiconductors, weak memory prices and restricted access to capital for our customers... This steep decline in our business activity is forcing us to adjust our organization in order to lower our cost base significantly by using the full flexibility of our business model, while maintaining our important strategic investments in research and development..." As a result of the severe slowdown, ASML expects sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 to be between EUR 450 mln and EUR 500 mln, compared with guidance issued on October 15 for sales of around EUR 530 mln. A sharp decline in new order intake, in addition to requests from customers to postpone backlog system deliveries, will translate into substantially lower sales in the first six months of 2009. We currently anticipate that sales in the first quarter of 2009 will be between EUR 180 mln and EUR 250 mln.

09:40 am Apple coverage transfered with a Neutral at Amtech: . Amtech transfers coverage of AAPL with a Neutral and a $95 tgt saying the co is arguably the best growth story in the technology sector today. It continues to deliver "hit" products to the marketplace, evidenced by the success of the iPod, the MacBook line of high-end notebook computers, and the emergence of the iPhone over the last 18 months. The firm says despite AAPL's enviable position in the computing/smartphone marketplace, they are concerned expectations into this holiday season and CY09E are too inflated. As the global macroeconomic headwinds increase and the effects of the credit crisis linger, they believe consumers will be more "price conscious" when selecting consumer electronics gear going forward.