Motorola Misses the Mark

Motorola continued a string of disappointments from technology bellwethers after the close on Thursday.

The wireless giant’s results and guidance were largely in line with Wall Street expectations, but the company’s fourth-quarter sales of $10.43 billion, while up 18% from the year-ago quarter, were just below $10.51 billion estimates, resulting in a 6% slide in the company’s shares in late trading. The company blamed supply issues for the mixed results.

Motorola is just the latest bellwether to report results or guidance that missed analysts’ expectations. Intel , Yahoo , Lucent , eBay , Apple and IBM have all posted results that disappointed Wall Street in one way or another.

One exception is AMD , which posted results and guidance so far beyond The Street’s expectations that investors couldn’t help but bid the stock up 11% on Thursday. AMD’s strong results helped the Nasdaq erase all but a point of Wednesday’s decline.

The Nasdaq rose 22 to 2301, the S&P 500 climbed 7 to 1285, and the Dow gained 25 to 10,880. Volume rose to 2.44 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.38 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 23-9 on the NYSE, and 20-9 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 72% on the NYSE, and 69% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 230-33 on the NYSE, and 213-25 on the Nasdaq.

Apple fell 4% on its results, but eBay gained 5% after analysts upgraded the stock and said its disappointing guidance was too conservative.

Citrix , Lam Research , Fairchild , Seagate and QLogic rose on their results.

Hutchinson , Spansion and Logitech fell on their results.