For its part, Swedish telecom equipment vendor Ericsson said Wednesday it posted net earnings of 3.9 billion kronor ($4.69 million) for the December quarter, compared to 5.6 billion kronor one year earlier, though sales increased by 23 percent to 67 billion kronor. The company said it will cut costs by laying off about 1,000 people.

Sales of hardware and mobile phones are forecast to slump this year, since it is generally thought that in times of recession, upgrades of PCs and mobile devices are among the first items on corporate and consumer budgets to get cut. But Apple defied the trend, Wednesday reporting that sales of Macs and iPhones for the December quarter fueled a 5.8 percent increase in sales and a 1.5 percent rise in profit, pushing revenue above $10 billion for the first time ever.

However, even this bit of good news was tempered by the company's caution. The company said both sales and profit would be lower in the current quarter than analysts have been forecasting. The company said revenue would be flat compared to a year earlier, at about $7.6 billion to $8 billion,on earnings per share of $0.90 to $1.00. Analysts had expected EPS of $1.13 on revenue of $8.2 billion.

IBM had good news Tuesday, reporting that net earnings for the quarter rose 12 percent to $4.42 billion, or $3.28 a share. Analysts had estimated earnings of $3.03 a share. The company reported that, partially due to an increase in the value of the dollar, revenue fell 6 percent to $27 billion, missing expectations by about a billion dollars.

But in a week where few companies appeared to have confidence about the rest of the year, IBM said it expects earnings of at least $9.20 a share, above analyst expectations of $8.75 a share. IBM's expectations, if they come to pass, support a central tenet held by many market observers this year: Large companies with broad product portfolios and worldwide reach are in the best position to weather the current downturn.