Numbers continue to ratchet lower for Dell (DELL) ahead of the company’s earnings report after the close Thursday for the fiscal third quarter ended October. While Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) preliminary results today impressed the Street, investors are more focused on the implications of recent ominous warnings from Intel (INTC) and others about the prospects for the rest of this year and 2009.

A number of analysts issued pre-earnings notes this morning and brought down numbers; these follow previous cautionary comments from analysts at Barclays, Merrill Lynch, Goldman, BMO Capital, Citigroup and Credit Suisse.

Cowen’s Louis Miscioscia today repeated his Outperform rating on the stock, but slashed his estimates. He now sees EPS of 31 cents for the October quarter, down from 34 cents; 30 cents for the January quarter, down from 35 cents; $1.30 for the January 2009 fiscal year, down from $1.39; and $1.25 for fiscal 2010, down from $1.49.

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Apple (AAPL) has a well-established pattern of low-balling its financial guidance–and BMO Capital’s Keith Bachman thinks we will see more of the same when it comes to the September quarter.

In a research note this morning, Bachman takes a look at the direction Apple is likely to provide on September quarter numbers. He notes that in the past, the company has guided to 3 to 5 percent sequential revenue growth in the September quarter, which he notes would suggest revenue of $7.7 billion to $7.75 billion, versus the current consensus of $8.27 billion. He notes that iPhone sales in the quarter should jump to north of four million from around 700,000 in the June quarter, but that most of the revenue is deferred, given the company’s policy of recognizing revenue from the phone over a two-year period. Bachman thinks Apple could guide EPS for the quarter to $1 a share, versus the Street consensus of $1.24.

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BMO Capital’s Keith Bachman this morning raised his EPS estimates for Apple’s (AAPL) September 2009 fiscal year to $6.36 from $6.21, reflecting increases in his estimates on both notebook sales and iPhone’s average selling prices. Bachman repeated his Outperform rating and $205 price target on the stock.

For the June quarter, Bachman thinks Apple shipped 2.4 million to 2.5 million Macs, providing 39% year-over-year unit growth. For calendar 2009, he expects Apple CPU units to increase 26%, well above the 11.5%-12% growth he expects in the overall PC market.

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