Preopen Trading: Sun Continues to Remain Behind the Clouds in Early Action

Early risers were thrashing Sun Microsystems (SUNW Quote), the Unix server maker and tech bellwether, which said last night it would fall far short of the market's expectations for earnings and revenue for the third quarter. In early action, the stock was down $2.19 to $18.63, a 10.5% loss, on electronic trading network Instinet.

Sun said fiscal third-quarter earnings would be about half what was earlier expected -- 7 cents to 9 cents -- rather than the 15 cents expected by the 18-broker First Call/Thomson Financial consensus. The company also expects earnings growth of 10% to 13%, rather than the anticipated 30%, for the quarter, which ends March 31.

Continuing to lose ground this morning was BEA Systems (BEAS Quote), down $6.19 to $35.75, or 15%, after falling sharply in postclose trading yesterday. The applications server company, which provides infrastructure software to e-commerce (not a happy place right now), beat Wall Street's estimates by a penny but are still getting slammed.

EMC (EMC Quote) was also lower after trimming in stealth fashion its revenue guidance and saying its 2001 revenue goal was now a "best-case" scenario. The stock, which ended down sharply yesterday, was lately down another $2.35 to $38. Other losers included storage name Veritas (VRTS Quote), down 9.7%, and Qualcomm (QCOM Quote), down 6%. ...