Tech, The Market's Superman, Weakens (GOOG)(AAPL)(MSFT)(ORCL)

A recent poll from Reuters showed that analysts believe that earnings growth rates will go negative in the fourth quarter. It is the first time that has happened since the poll was introduced in 1999.

The one big exception to the bad forecast was tech, which is expected to show a 25% earnings increase in the last period of 2007.

But, that may not work out.

It has been widely accepted that housing, financial, auto, and retail earnings would do poorly. All of them are part of the web of tight credit, falling home prices, and rising fuel costs. Tech earnings and spending might be able to offset some of that.

The market is not cooperating. Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD) were recently downgraded. They appear to have no more price leverage and PC and server sales are having only modest growth.

Chip and component companies including Micron (MU) and Sandisk (SNDK) are up against rapidly falling pricing for their key products. Flash memory and storage shares are near 52-week lows, and the situation is unlikely to improve until late in 2008.

Big telecom and cable spending on tech is slow now, at least based on share prices for Cisco (CSCO), Nortel (NT), and Alcatel-Lucent (ALU). These may not recover until the overall capital spending cycle moves up again.

That leaves Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Oracle (ORCL). Each is taking advantage of a huge lead in its respective market. Each is likely to see some effect from a slowing economy, but each is likely to do relatively well.

Four stocks cannot keep the markets aloft.

Douglas A. McIntyre