Intel’s gain, Dell’s pain as PC market coasts along bottom

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<img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" align="right" src="http://static.arstechnica.com/assets/2009/06/intel_cpu_die_ars-thumb-230×130-6435-f.jpg" alt="companion photo for Intel’s gain, Dell’s pain as PC market coasts along bottom" />
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In the recent global meltdown, one truism that had long been forgotten came back and whacked every holder of every asset class square in the face: in a crisis, all correlations go to 1. Numbers that once either had no apparent connection with one another, or had an inverse relationship, moved in tandem, so that the price of tea in China and the price of a share of Dell both went straight down at the same rate at the same time.
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One of the major signs that the meltdown phase of the crisis is over, or at least taking a break to regroup for round two, is that many of these crisis-driven correlations have disappeared, so that normal seasonal and market dynamics are once again visible in the data (albeit faintly, since all of the numbers are much smaller now).&nbsp;</p><p>Nowhere is this condition more apparent than in the current round of technology industry earnings releases that <a href="http://www.intc.com/financials.cfm">Intel kicked off</a> yesterday, where the chipmaker is seeing demand for some products in particular geographies snap back a bit like an overstretched rubber band, while others stay flat or even continue to decline somewhat.
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