DALLAS (AP) -- Computer maker Dell Inc. said Thursday it will reduce more than four years' worth of earnings by up to $150 million after an internal probe found the company misled its auditors and manipulated results to meet performance goals.

The struggling company said its net income for the restatement period will be reduced by between $50 million and $150 million, or 2 cents to 7 cents per share.

The largest reductions in quarterly profits were expected to be in the first quarter of fiscal 2003 and the second quarter of fiscal 2004, each lowered between 10 percent and 13 percent.

In total, it will restate all of fiscal 2003 through 2006 and the first quarter of fiscal 2007.

The investigation, which began in August 2006 and evaluated more than 5 million documents, "identified evidence that certain adjustments appear to have been motivated by the objective of attaining financial targets," Dell said.

The Round Rock-based company added that unspecified terminations, reassignments, reprimands, increased supervision,

TOKYO (AP) -- Asian stocks fell sharply Friday morning on persistent concerns stemming from the U.S. housing loan crisis and its impact on the world economy.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index declined 376.10 points, or 2.33 percent, to end morning trading at 15,772.39 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The index has lost some 8 percent since the beginning of this month.

The broader Topix index, which includes all shares on the exchange's first section, lost 16.32 points, or 1.04 percent, to 1,551.14 points.

In South Korea, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index declined as much as 2.1 percent in early trading before rebounding into positive territory briefly. The Kospi was down 14.62 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,677.36, about midway through the session.

New Zealand's benchmark NZX-50 index was down 0.5 percent to 3,937.1.

Japanese stocks fell despite Wall Street pulling off a dramatic late-session turnaround to close mixed Thursday after

Daily FX
Australian Dollar Breaks Below 80 Cents, New Zealand Dollar Below 70 Cents
Thursday August 16, 5:20 pm ET
By Kathy Lien, Chief Strategist strategist@dailyfx.com

The Australian and New Zealand dollars were the biggest losers in the currency market today. The Australian dollar is down 5 percent against the Japanese Yen and 3 percent against the US dollar. The New Zealand dollar on the other hand is down 4 percent against the Yen and 2.5 percent against the US dollar.

Both currencies have been hit hard by carry trade liquidation as Mrs. Watanabe cuts her losses. At this point, the loss due to currency fluctuations far outweigh the interest rate gains. In fact, AUD/JPY is one of the only Yen pairs to fall more in this phase of liquidation than it did back in 1998. Overnight, the Australian stock market plummeted as much as 5 percent, which was the largest one day decline in 7 years. From high to low, the 2-day decline in NZD/JPY is the biggest in 22 years. The Canadian dollar on the other hand has been spared even though international securities transactions were much weaker than expected.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Hewlett-Packard Co.'s third-quarter sales and profit breezed past Wall Street's estimates as the technology bellwether continued to cash in on healthy sales of laptop computers and lucrative printing ink. Shares inched higher on a boosted financial forecast.

HP's net income for the quarter ended July 31 was $1.78 billion, or 66 cents per share, a 29 percent jump from the $1.38 billion, or 48 cents per share in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time charges, the Palo Alto-based company earned 71 cents per share, 5 cents higher than the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Sales for the period were $25.38 billion, a 16 percent increase from the $21.89 billion recorded a year ago. Revenues were more than $1 billion higher than the $24.09 billion in sales that analysts had been predicting.

The biggest sales jump came within the company's Personal Systems Group, which includes desktop and laptop computers and is HP's biggest source of revenue. Bolstered by laptop sales that grew 54 percent over last year, revenue within the

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The credit mess forced Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, to borrow $11.5 billion on Thursday, shocking financial markets already reeling from the growing credit crunch and threatening to make home loans harder to get.

Countrywide said it borrowed the cash from a group of 40 banks so it could keep making home loans.

The announcement sent its stock tumbling about 11 percent and prompted one credit rating agency to downgrade its rating to near-junk bond status.

Countrywide is the largest mortgage lender by volume, accounting for more than 13 percent of the loan servicing market as of June 30, according to the mortgage industry publication Inside Mortgage Finance.

It made the borrowing move amid a credit crunch that has driven a number of its smaller peers to bankruptcy.

Equity analyst Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc. said a continued liquidity crunch for more than three months could