The Night Watch: Earnings Deluge Produces Few Big Movers

Updated from 5:14 p.m. EDT

Traders seemed a little uncertain after the close Wednesday, as volume was muted and most of the active stocks were close to their

4 p.m. EDT closing levels, despite another busy day for corporate earnings.

IBM

(IBM) - Get Report

was up 2.3% to $86.45 after posting earnings and revenue that were in line with analysts lowered estimates.

Business Objects

(BOBJ)

was among the volume leaders in extended trading, and the stock was dropping 6.4% to $34.58. After the close, the software maker beat analysts' quarterly expectations, but the company trimmed its revenue estimate for the full year.

Broadcom

(BRCM)

was declining 2.7% to $37.09 despite posting a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss.

Apple

(AAPL) - Get Report

was off 1.4% at $25.75 after the computer maker cleared estimates by a penny.

Lam Research

(LRCX) - Get Report

, a chip-equipment maker, lost less money than analysts expected, and the company's stock inched up 0.2% to $29.60.

Novellus

(NVLS)

, another producer of equipment for chip companies, slipped 0.1%.

Volume was low compared with the prior extra session. In the first hour of extended trading, only around 2.2 million shares changed hands among the 20 most active stocks on the Instinet platform.

Other active issues, mainly tech stocks, were barely budging.

Cisco

(CSCO) - Get Report

was off 0.4%, and

Sun Micro

(SUNW) - Get Report

was up 0.4%.

JDS Uniphase

(JDSU)

and

Intel

(INTC) - Get Report

were each tacking on 0.2%.

The

Nasdaq 100 Unit Trust

(QQQ) - Get Report

and

Microsoft

(MSFT) - Get Report

were each losing 0.1%.