Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. fell 21% Tuesday after the power conversion technology specialist released mixed first-quarter results and disappointing forward guidance.

So what: Quarterly revenue rose 26% year over year to $140.9 million, which translated to adjusted net income of $18.1 million, or $0.43 per diluted share. Analysts, on average, were looking for lower adjusted earnings of $0.41 per share on higher sales of $142.6 million.

However, Advanced Energy also expects second-quarter sales of $135 million to $145 million, with adjusted earnings per share of $0.34 to $0.40. By contrast, analysts were modeling Q2 earnings of $0.47 per share on sales of $154.48 million.

Now what: Advanced Energy blamed its weak outlook on a decline in OEM customers' second-quarter bookings, which was "consistent with industry reports." To its credit, Advanced Energy also suggested that its own diversified product portfolio helped to balance the negative effects of those declines.

In any case, it appears much of investors' pessimism might be priced in, with shares now trading below nine times next year's expected earnings. Even if those estimates drift lower as analysts have time to fully digest today's news, I think today's plunge might just offer a great entry point for long-term investors to add to or open a small position.

On Tuesday, the stock market gave up some of its recent gains, with a combination of economic worries and rising geopolitical tension holding back investors from pushing the market to further gains. By the close, the Dow and S&P 500 both fell between 0.75% and 1%, but for Twitter , athenahealth , and Capstone Turbine , the losses were much more dramatic, sending shareholders scurrying for cover.

Source: Twitter.

Twitter plummeted 18%, adding further to its recent losses as the social-media stock hit a new all-time low. The post-IPO lockup period for insiders expired today, with the possibility that more than 80% of Twitter's outstanding shares could be sold at any time. Many prominent insiders have said that they plan not tell sell their Twitter shares, but with many investors questioning Twitter's ability to keep up its growth rate, nervous shareholders took the event as an excuse to get out. Bullish investors, on the other hand, should take comfort in the fact that lockup expirations associated with Twitter's main rival proved to be close to that stock's eventual lows from which it posted huge gains.

For athenahealth, today's decline of 14% came as Greenlight Capital hedge-fund manager David Einhorn announced that his firm had taken a short position in the cloud-based medical billing and clinical services company. Einhorn's case at the Sohn Investment Conference late yesterday characterized athenahealth as a "bubble stock" that would more accurately be seen as a business-services provider rather than a cloud-computing stock and said that the shares could lose 80% of their value. Given Einhorn's track record of making successful short calls, investors rushed for the exits even as the company and some analysts challenged Einhorn's thesis. More generally, Einhorn has said that he thinks that we're in a second tech bubble, and the reminder of that might have been responsible for sending the Nasdaq to bigger losses than the overall market today.

Source: Capstone Turbine.

Capstone Turbine plunged 15% as investors reacted to analysis of the company's preliminary results for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company made numerous disclosures in its prospectus for its most recent secondary stock offering, and analyst Adam Gefvert noted that the figures included the revelation that Capstone Turbine expects a sequential drop in revenue from the previous quarter as well as a lower than expected cash balance. With shareholders already on edge because of the offering itself, the suggestion that the microturbine-maker's recent encouraging results could simply be a flash in the pan raised new concerns about the sustainability of the stock's jump earlier this year.

Facebook  recently acquired Oculus VR for a hefty $2 billion, which turned some heads since the two companies seemingly have little in common. Facebook clearly hopes that Oculus will become a broader platform, and as such Oculus now envisions a future where its virtual reality platform extends beyond just gaming. Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe recently discussed the deal at TechCrunch Disrupt, and says that Oculus could reach 1 billion users in the future. Iribe also notes that the deal sparked considerable interest among bigger developers who are now interested in developing content for Oculus Rift.

In comparison, Facebook's WhatsApp deal cost almost ten times as much and Facebook also expects WhatsApp to reach 1 billion users in the near future. In fairness, WhatsApp is already halfway there, while Oculus is starting from scratch as its product has yet to officially ship. How realistic is it for a seventh of the world's population to adopt virtual reality technology?

In this segment of Tech Teardown, Erin Kennedy discusses Oculus VR's ambitious hopes with Evan Niu, CFA, our tech and telecom bureau chief.

Microsoft  has sent out press invites to a May 20 event, with official tag line of "Join us for a small gathering." That could possibly hint that Microsoft will unveil its long-rumored Surface Mini tablet. The smaller device has reportedly been in development for nearly two years, and rumors of its launch circulated last year. Last September, Microsoft had supposedly delayed the launch until early 2014, which coincides with the current timing. The Surface Mini is expected to feature a 7.5 inch display with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and run Windows RT.

This all coincides with previous reports that Microsoft has cut its licensing fee on smaller devices that retail for $250 or less. That move is indication that Microsoft is targeting the smaller-sized tablet segment in numerous ways. It can incentivize third-party OEMs with discounts while launching first-party device. Overall, Surface remains a very young but growing business. Last quarter, Surface revenue jumped 50% to $500 million, but was still unprofitable as Microsoft lost $45 million on Surface sales. 

In this segment of Tech Teardown, Erin Kennedy discusses the rumored Surface Mini with Evan Niu, CFA, our tech and telecom bureau chief.

While semiconductor manufacturing technology isn't the only thing that determines the competitiveness of a given chip, it is one of the key enablers of dramatic performance and power improvements. Intel , which has struggled mightily to develop chips that mobile device vendors actually want to use, is well known for its manufacturing technology lead over the rest of the industry. This lead isn't just in the ability to manufacture the latest-generation parts, but it's also in that Intel's design and manufacturing teams are very closely aligned.

Some background on 14-nanometer
Today, Intel ships chips built on the 22-nanometer FinFET manufacturing process, while its competitors ship on 28-nanometer planar. FinFETs essentially allow a transistor to deliver significantly more performance at lower power than traditional "planar" devices of the same geometry. This, in theory, should have given Intel a pretty significant advantage at the 22-nanometer generation over its 28-nanometer counterparts, but of course Intel's competition had superior chip designs, compensating for the manufacturing deficit.

However, it is likely that Intel will significantly improve the competitiveness of its designs at the 14-nanometer node with Cherry Trail (for tablets) and Broxton (for higher-end tablets and high end smartphones). Further, Intel claims that its 14-nanometer process yields significant density improvements over Samsung's 14-nanometer process and Taiwan Semiconductor's 16-nanometer process, which should allow Intel to pack more functionality into a given area than its competitors, leading to product superiority -- in theory.

Let's talk product timelines
Intel plans to launch its first 14-nanometer tablet processors in late 2014 (think November), and its first smartphone 14-nanometer product by "mid-2015" (let's say that this is the July-August timeframe). Qualcomm , Intel's biggest rival in the mobile space, will have 20-nanometer planar-based product in the marketplace during the first half of 2015 (with silicon probably shipping to partners in early 2015 for April-May 2015 device availability). It stands to reason that Qualcomm will have 14/16 nanometer product available within a year of that.

If Qualcomm has 14/16-nanometer product in the first half of 2016, then this gives Qualcomm and Intel a period of "overlap" (although again, Intel claims its 14-nanometer process is superior) before Intel presumably transitions to its first 10-nanometer Atom products in mid-2016. At this point, Intel will be on the 10-nanometer node (which should be 1.5 to two generations ahead in density relative to TSMC and Samsung-built 14/16-nanometer), which means that Intel will have the largest manufacturing lead it has ever had in the mobile space on both transistor performance and transistor density.

If this comes true, then Intel could do quite well
While the semiconductor manufacturing technology isn't the be-all, end-all of product performance, as long as Intel's product teams do a good job defining and executing next-generation products, Intel should have a clear power and performance lead over its competitors by mid-2016. While this doesn't solve Intel's Android software compatibility issues, the hardware should be unequivocally leadership, if it wasn't already at the 14-nanoeter generation.

Of course, there's plenty of risk here. We saw that even the mighty Intel struggled to ramp 14-nanometer to the right yield levels, so there is risk that the 10-nanometer node may be delayed. Further, even if Intel can ramp 10-nanometer to production yields, the designs need to be there from both a hardware and software perspective. And if all of that is there, Intel still needs to fight Qualcomm (as well as potentially in-house chip designs at some of its customers) for designs, which is a battle that goes beyond technical specifications.

Foolish bottom line
At the 10-nanometer generation, Intel is likely to have a pretty significant performance, watt, and cost advantage over its peers. This has a good chance of translating into unequivocal product leadership, although it is important to understand that Intel's product definition and implementation teams need to execute properly for this manufacturing advantage to translate into a real-world sales advantage. 

The Dow Jones Industrials got hit hard Tuesday, falling almost 130 points after trade data called into question whether the U.S. economy will recover as quickly from its winter-induced slowdown as investors had hoped. Moreover, with geopolitical concerns on the rise and ongoing nervousness about the state of the global economy in key international markets, the Dow Jones Industrials are having a harder time staying near record highs. But even on a big losing day, Intel and Verizon posted small but still positive returns on the day.

Source: Intel.

For Intel, today's three-penny gain came as the company unveiled a new set of Chromebooks, with a wide variety of different hardware companies planning to offer the devices to customers by the end of the year. Chromebooks have emerged as a key entry-level computing device, with lean hardware that meets the needs of low-demand users who primarily want Internet surfing capability. By targeting Chromebooks, Intel can take advantage of its prowess in the PC laptop arena while also helping take Chromebook performance up a notch. More broadly, Intel hopes that by making a firmer push into up-and-coming devices, it can position itself to get a greater foothold in the mobile and wearable computing arena, where most of Intel's future growth potential lies. Chromebooks won't be a solution by themselves, but they could help Intel make the transition without immediately sacrificing too much in profit.

Verizon's gain of almost 0.2% was slightly more substantial, and it bucked the negative trend of all of its U.S. wireless-network rivals. One of Verizon's biggest issues is whether smaller competitors will be given preferential treatment in future government auctions of wireless spectrum, which could eat into the huge advantage that Verizon has built up with strategic purchases of spectrum over the years. Currently, the battle is a political one, with House Republicans having called for the Federal Communications Commission not to establish rules that would put Verizon and its fellow Dow telecom component at a disadvantage compared to smaller carriers. With a vote coming as early as next week, it's important for Verizon to get a favorable resolution on the issue in order to protect itself from further competition.

Investors in the Dow Jones Industrials need to remember that it has been a long time since they've seen even a normal correction in the bull market. Meanwhile, Intel and Verizon should remind Dow investors that even in down markets, some stocks can still perform well.

On March 8 2012, the launch of Doritos Locos tacos by Taco Bell of Yum! Brands was met with great rejoicing by the college-aged adrenaline-junkie crowd. Four months later, Taco Bell launched Cantina Bell in an effort to draw in a new hip, health-conscious crowd. Doritos Locos tacos have enjoyed massive success, as the company sold almost $1 billion worth of them in just 18 months according to the Huffington Post. Cantina Bell hasn't turned out so well.

A restaurant frequently tries to draw in an additional segment of the food culture by offering menu items that make customers rethink the restaurant's image. For Yum!, Doritos Locos tacos only reinforced Taco Bell's image, while Cantina Bell didn't come close to changing it. Nowadays Yum! is learning from its past mistakes and going with a brand new game plan.

Ladies and gentleman, meet the new Yum! Brands
In recent months Yum! has unveiled three new brands that demonstrate the company's evolving strategy.

1. Super Chix
2. US Taco Company
3. Banh Shop

The menu for the US Taco Company looks unique, with offerings like Philly cheesesteak and lobster, but the real differentiator will be the Urban Taproom which gives patrons a craft beer selection and spiked milkshake options. The combination of alcohol and premium menu items will cause the US Taco Company's average check to be over 60% higher than that of Taco Bell, according to Nation's Restaurant News.

Finally, there's the Banh Shop -- the concept we know the least about. This restaurant will likely be a Vietnamese-inspired "better sandwich" shop. I can't help but think Yum! is targeting Panera with this move.

Panera is losing customers, and it blames the weather for the decline. Its transactions fell 2.8% in the most recent quarter. However, this downward trend isn't new--two quarters ago, management suggested that faster throughput would result in more transactions. Panera's speed of service improved this quarter, but this didn't solve the traffic decline. Simply put, now's a good time for Yum! to take aim at Panera.

What this means looking forward
To sum up, Yum! is beginning to cater to different customers in different ways. Instead of uniting two very different customer segments under one roof, it will look to create complimentary restaurant concepts. This strategy will allow Yum! to please two crowds at the same time without cannibalizing sales from either concept. 

While Yum! has quickly said that these concepts are just experiments, the potential is enormous. Greg Creed -- Taco Bell's head honcho -- said he'd like to see 1,500 locations for US Taco Company. Could Super Chix and the Banh Shop grow to over 1,000 locations each? It's extremely early, but not extremely ridiculous.

The last couple of years haven't been great for Yum!, but I happen to believe the enormous strategy shift outlined here signals that the best is still to come.

The U.S.' smallest listed domestic cigarette company, Lorillard recently reported first quarter results, and although headline figures were in-line, underlying figures were worrying.

Where to look
Lorillard has been one of the more successful cigarette companies in the U.S. in terms of sales during the past few years. Indeed, while the cigarette industry as a whole has seen the volume of cigarettes sold decline as smokers kick the habit, Lorillard's cigarette sales have continued to expand, bucking the wider industry trend.

However, what's surprising is the fact that Lorillard's Newport brand of cigarettes, which has seen volumes rise every year for the past five, actually reported a decline in units sold for the first quarter. Overall, Lorillard's cigarette sales declined by 2.9%. This slightly better than larger peer Altria's performance, as Altria reported a 4.4% decline in cigarette sales.

As Lorillard's sales are not falling as fast as the rest of the industry, however, the company was able to boost its market share for the period. Year over year, at the end of the first quarter Lorillard's cigarettes accounted for 15.2% of the domestic market; this was up 0.3% from the same period the year before.

Thanks in part to Lorillard's cigarette price hike, the company reported an adjust income per share of $0.69 for the quarter and was up 4.5% year on year. Adjusted cigarette operating income ticked higher by 4.9% thanks to a 100 basis point increase in adjusted gross margin .

After years of growth, though, it is worrying to see that Lorillard's cigarette volumes are starting to decline.

E-cigs
Another worrying trend revealed within Lorillard's earnings report is the company's c-cig sales.

You see, Lorillard was a first mover in the e-cig space and was the largest big tobacco company to commit to a national rollout of its e-cig offering, Blu. Blu e-cigs shot to the top of the industry and quickly becoming an industry leader with a 45.8% share of the national market at the end of last year, up from 35.3% at the beginning of the year.

Unfortunately, this growth did not come cheap. Lorillard spent millions on promotional activities to drive sales. As a result, this increased promotional activity pushed Lorillard's e-cig division from a healthy profit at the beginning of 2013 toward only breaking even by the fourth quarter. Despite sliding profits, though, Lorillard had a market leading position and sales were growing.

Unfortunately, first quarter figures show that things have deteriorated further for Lorillard's e-cig division.

The company's share of the e-cig market dropped from 45.8% at the end of 2013 to 45%. Alongside falling market share, Lorillard's e-cig sales fell just under 11% and the company's operating income from e-cigs went from break even to a loss of $11.

This loss comes as Altria begins the national rollout of its own e-cig offering.

Here comes Altria
Altria's e-cig offering comes in the form of the MarkTen brand, which the company initially rolled out to test markets in the middle of last year. Up until recently, Altria has kept quiet about its initial sales, which implies less-than-impressive results.

That being said, Altria's management broke its silence on the fourth-quarter conference call to reveal that the product's initial sales have exceeded expectations. In just seven weeks, MarkTen achieved brand leadership by taking a market share of 48% within the trial market. Altria intends to leverage lessons learned from its initial rollout when it commences national distribution during the second quarter of this year. Altria's existing dominance in the traditional cigarette market will also allow the company to gain distribution and customer awareness faster than its peers.

Altria also recently acquired Green Smoke, an e-vapor business, to boost its e-cig offering. Green Smoke has been manufacturing and marketing high-quality premium products since 2009, so it knows the market well. The acquisition will bolster Altria's already-strong e-cig development and sales team, and will also expand Altria's product portfolio to address adult smokers' and vapers' different product preferences.

Foolish summary
Overall, there are two worrying trends within Lorillard's results. First and foremost, the volume of cigarettes shipped by the company has gone into reverse after years of growth. Despite ramping up promotional activity, Lorillard is also losing market share of the e-cig segment. This is only likely to get worse as Altria enters the fray.

Stocks sank today as tensions in Ukraine heightened and some big names including AIG and Twitter fell, putting pressure on their respective sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average  shed 130 points or 0.8% with drugmakers Merck and Pfizer again falling the furthest. The two declined as Merck sold its consumer health division, which includes brands such as Afrin cold remedy, for $14.2 billion, to Bayer, and AstraZeneca continued to signal that it was not interested in being acquired by Pfizer, outlining a plan to make sales grow to $45 billion within 10 years to help convince shareholders the company was better off as an independent entity.  Outside the Dow, results weren't any better, as the S&P 500 lost 0.9% and the Nasdaq fell 1.4%.

Only one economic report was released today, the March international trade report, which showed the trade deficit narrowing slightly from $41.9 billion to $40.4 billion, essentially in line with analyst estimates, but the figure was lower than government estimates in the first-quarter GDP report, meaning that figure could be revised downward to show a contraction. That would mark the first time the economy had shrunk in three years, though much of the blame has been pinned on poor winter weather, and data has shown a resurgence since then.

Source: Flickr.com.

Turning to individual stocks, Whole Foods Market  plummeted after hours, falling 14% on a rotten earnings report. The organic grocery chain missed the mark in nearly every category, reporting revenue, earnings, and guidance all below expectations. Though Whole Foods pioneered the organic foods segment it still leads, the company has come under pressure from increased competition, including mainstream grocers such as Wal-Mart and Kroger, which have entered the high-growth organic business. Whole Foods is still growing, but perhaps not at a rate that warrants the stock's high price tag. Revenue increased 9.7% in the quarter to $3.32 billion, below the consensus at $3.34 billion, as same-store sales improved 4.5%, a respectable clip. Net income, however, was flat at $0.38 per share as food costs rose and its gross and operating margins fell by 50 basis points. Analysts had expected a profit of $0.41 per share. The company also dialed down its full-year EPS guidance from a range of $1.58-$1.65 to a range of $1.52-$1.56, below the consensus at $1.61. With sales growing at just around 10%, it may be hard for the stock to justify a P/E close to 30.

Moving in the opposite direction today was Office Depot , whose shares jumped 16% after the company reported earnings and announced a store closure plan this morning. The office-supply retailer posted an adjusted EPS of $0.07 against expectations of $0.03, and said that sales trends improved throughout the quarter. It also said it will close at least 400 of its nearly 2,000 stores in the U.S., adding $75 million to annual cost savings from its merger with Office Max. Still, overall sales fell 5% on a 3% decline in same-store sales, indicating continued problems for a contracting industry. Looking ahead, management said that "market trends will remain challenging," but lifted its operating income guidance to at least $160 million from at least $140 million because of early realization of cost savings. Office Depot's prospects look improved after today's report, but I'm still concerned about long-term profitability in a declining industry.

Like a bad, late-night Cinco de Mayo burrito sitting heavy in your stomach (post-2 a.m. street meat is never a good idea), some sour quarterly earnings reports weighed heavy on investors on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average . fell 130 points as Wall Street continues to sell down the tech stocks it's been buying up all through 2014.

MarketSnacks Fact of the Day: People who tend to win the game "Rock-Paper-Scissors" stick to the same hand and strategy each round, while those who tend to lose switch them up.

As a result of increased operating expenses, Groupon reported a loss of $38 million, or $0.06 per share, in the first quarter of 2014, well above the $4 million loss seen through the first three months of 2013.

Total revenue at Groupon rose by 26% from $601 million to $758 million. This was entirely attributable to its direct revenue -- the products it sells directly to consumers -- which more than doubled, from $163 million to $331 million. Its third-party revenue actually fell by $13 million, or 3%, to $426 million.

"Our marketplace continued to gain traction and growth in our mobile business accelerated, with more than 10 million app downloads this quarter and mobile transactions reaching 54% in March," said Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky in the earnings announcement.

However, Groupon had almost identical growth in the cost of its revenue, which grew by $150 million, or 67%, to stand at $371 million. As a result, its gross profit rose by only $7 million, or 2%, to stand at $386 million.

In addition, the discount retailer saw a significant increase in its marketing expenses, which grew from $50 million in the first quarter of 2013 to $79 million in the most recent quarter. In addition, its selling, general, and administrative expenses rose by nearly $17 million, or almost 5.5% to $325 million.

In total, the operating expenses at Groupon rose by $48 million relative to the first quarter of 2013, which outpaced its gross profit growth. As a result, it saw an operating loss of $20 million in the first quarter of this year, compared with a profit of $22 million over the same time period last year.

Groupon did further clarify its expectations for 2014, as it said it expects to see its adjusted EBITDA exceed $300 million. It previously said it thought its adjusted EBITDA would be slightly above the $287 million seen in 2013. Its adjusted EBITDA stood at $40 million in the first quarter of 2014, versus $72 million in the first quarter of 2013, a decline of nearly 45%.

"We're on track with our plans in 2014 to invest in the growth of Local, improve our Goods margins, and drive profitability in our International operations," Lefkofsky concluded, in his prepared remarks. "As a result, we have further confidence in our results for the back half of the year and have increased our full-year outlook." 

In reporting its results for the third quarter of fiscal 2014 on Tuesday, Prospect Capital saw its net investment income increase from $0.26 per share in the third quarter of last year to $0.31 per share in the most recent quarter, a 30% gain. Meanwhile, net investment income at the business development company increased by 65% to $98.5 million. However, its common shares outstanding have risen by approximately 35% over the past year. That's why EPS was up, but not as significantly as the total dollar amount.

Total assets at Prospect Capital have risen from $4.5 billion through the end of March 2013 to $6.4 billion at the end of the most recent quarter, a 43% gain. It made 18 new and follow-on investments for a total of more than $1.3 billion in the most recent quarter, a record total.

Included in those originations were a $277.5 debt facility for Instant Web, which provides direct marketers with direct marketing solutions, and a $246 million cash investment in Harbortouch Payments, which provides point-of-sale equipment merchants use to process transactions.

The company said that it "closed approximately 65% of our March 2014 quarter originations during the last two business days of the quarter," and as a result, "we did not realize the full economic benefit possible from such investments during the quarter." The company continued: "However, we expect to generate full-quarter interest benefits in the June 2014 quarter from these investments."