Pre Market Movers

Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) shares are plunging over 8% in premarket trading after the wholesale retailer warned its August-ending quarter's profit would miss analyst estimates. This is most surprising as Costco had been one of the retailer that seemed to have benefited from consumers trying to save and buy lower-cost items. But Costco blamed the lower profit on rising energy costs, saying it will earn less than $1 per share.

Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) late Tuesday reported second-quarter results, posting a loss of $3.3 billion, was worse than analysts had anticipated. Excluding one-time items, WaMu lost $3.34 per share, much wider than the expected loss of $1.05 per share. Piper Jaffray downgraded WM shares from Neutral to Sell and Friedman Billings halved its target price on the shares from $8 to $4. Shares are off nearly 3% in premarket trading.

Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) also reported profits and sales that came up short of estimates. Second-quarter profit fell 18% to $131 million, or 9 cents per share. Analysts had projected earnings of 11 cents per share in the most recent quarter, according to Thomson Financial. Revenue grew 6% to $1.8 billion, or $1.35 billion after subtracting commissions, also below estimates. Yahoo! shares, however, are up about 3% in premarket trading since investors were relieved the performance wasn't as bad as many had feared after Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) reported last week and disappointed investors. Also, Yahoo didn't dramatically lower its revenue outlook for the remainder of the year.

EMC (NYSE:EMC) is up 6% on strong earnings.

VMWare (NYSE:VMW) is down 14% on a weak forecast for the balance of 2008.

E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) is off 15% after missing Wall St. estimates.

Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) is off 5% on poor earnings.

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