The Night Watch: Warnings Result in After-Hours Queasiness

Micromuse and Silicon Strategies fell in evening trading after warning about the quarter.
By Yi Ping Ho ,

Stocks were mixed in the extended hours, amid relatively skimpy volume, as investors showed signs of heartburn after chewing over yet another batch of profit concerns.

Micromuse

( MUSE), the most heavily traded outfit on

Instinet

, continued its downward spiral amid worries of its third-quarter results. The shares, which plunged 23.43% to a close of $35.25 on the

Nasdaq, lately dropped 5% to $33.49 on Instinet. On

Island

ECN, the other extended-hours platform, the shares gave up 5.1% to $33.45.

Indeed, the worry bells went off after the chief executive officer of Micromuse, a software company based in San Francisco, Calif., gave a presentation at the

Bear Stearns

technology conference earlier today. CEO Greg Brown reportedly described business conditions as "very, very hard," though he did not provide any financial guidance. In May, the company reiterated its financial outlook for the third quarter, saying revenue would grow by about 6% to 7%, off from its usual 9% to 10% sales growth.

On a similar note,

Silicon Storage Technology

(SSTI) - Get Report

, which designs a range of flash memory devices, traded off after the company warned of lower-than-expected earnings in the second quarter, due to excess inventory and sluggish new order, and added it plans to cut production. The shares lost 9.8% to $9.62 on Island.

In other news-related selling,

Enzon

(ENZN)

dropped 5% to $65.25 on Island after the company said it intends to make a private offering of $400 million of convertible notes due in 2008, with an option to issue an additional $60 million of notes. The drug developer said it plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, including research and development and possible future acquisitions.

The late players were also reacting to wire reports that said this morning's meeting between

General Electric

(GE) - Get Report

chairman Jack Welch and European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti went well, and could further GE's efforts to win regulatory approval to buy

Honeywell International

(HON) - Get Report

. Shares of GE lately lost 0.7% to $47.50, while Honeywell climbed 1.3% to $42.80 also on Instinet.

Meanwhile, bargain hunters went scouting among the regular cast of tech heavyweights.

Cisco Systems

(CSCO) - Get Report

recently inched higher by 0.3% to $19.08 on Instinet, and

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

gained 0.4% to $70.95 on Instinet, while

Dell

(DELL) - Get Report

rose 0.2% to $25.25 on Instinet. Software outfit

Oracle

(ORCL) - Get Report

and server stalwart

Sun Microsystems

(SUNW) - Get Report

were also among the blue-chip tech stocks enjoying slight gains tonight.

Island ECN offers trading mainly in Nasdaq-listed stocks, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.

Confused?

TheStreet.com

explains how the rules change when the sun goes down in Investing Basics: Night Owl, a section devoted to after-hours trading.

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