This Morning: Awaiting AAPL’s Cook, QCOM, BBRY Scrutinized

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are down 16 cents in premarket trading at $479.77, as the market awaits the presentation at 10:15 by chief executive officer Tim Cook at the Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco, where he is the kickoff speaker.

You can catch the audio webcast of that event on Apple’s website here.

Mizuho Securities‘s Abhey Lamba was on CNBC a short while ago saying that investors waiting for some big announcement at the conference may be disappointed, as it’s “not in Apple’s style” to make big announcements at these kinds of investor events.

The Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Lessin this morning writes that the company will file by the end of the day tomorrow a response to the lawsuit by hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who is contesting Apple’s proxy statement on a procedural matter.

And there were mixed notes overnight from the Street. Citigroup’s Glen Yeung reiterated a Neutral rating, noting the loss of tablet market share as expressed by IDC in its latest data, while J.P. Morgan’s Mark Moskowitz reiterates an Overweight rating, writing that the company can be a leader, along with Samsung Electronics (005930KS), as “long-term evolution,” or LTE, gets built out further.

Shares of Dell (DELL) are up 4 cents at $13.74 as the Street continues to ponder the shareholder opposition that has emerged to Michael Dell’s proposed leverage buyout at $13.65 per share. Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek this morning reiterates a Hold rating on the stock, but raises his price target to that $13.65 bid, writing that “we believe that the bid could be raised to $15 to satisfy agitated shareholders.”

Shares of Qualcomm (QCOM) are down $1.34, or 2%, at $65.84 after J.P. Morgan’s Rod Hall cut his rating on the shares to Neutral from Overweight, warning of the general decline of growth in the maturing smartphone market.

Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) are up 17 cents, or 1%, at $15.90, despite a cautious note from Ben Bollin of Cleveland Research, who writes this morning that developer interest in the new BlackBerry 10 platform appears to be low, based on his findings. Cleveland has a policy of not sharing its reports with journalists, so I can’t add a lot more to the description than that.