Sun Microsystems Inc treasurer Tom Meredith declined to comment on earnings estimate changes today by analysts at Goldman, Sachs & Co and Prudential Securities Inc. Goldman analyst John Levinson cut his estimate for the first quarter ended last month to 32 cents a share and Prudential analyst Laura Conigliaro reduced her estimate to 30 cents – still up on the 26 cents a share Sun did this time last year. Meredith says that Sun instituted a policy nine months ago of not providing guidance to the Street on earnings – a wise but very unusual step taken because of the epidemic of shareholder law suits over financial statements that later turned out to be over optimistic or pessimistic. But the new policy is unusual because many Wall Street analysts rely on the companies they follow to tell them whether their guesses are on target or not.The shares fell $2.375 to $24.875 on the downgrade.
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