Ascend Shares Down 8.2% on Earnings News

Ascend Communications Inc. shares fell 8.2% after the company’s last-minute profit warning led investors to question whether management has been disclosing all of Ascend’s problems. Ascend shares fell $2.88 to $32.38 in trading of 33.8 million, making them the most active in U.S markets. The shares reached their lowest since January 1996, after the Alameda-based company’s warning that its third-quarter profit will lag analysts’ projections by as much as 13 cents a share. The expected shortfall follows months of scanty and in some cases misleading information about flaws in the company’s main product that links Web surfers into the Internet, analysts and investors said. That calls into question the credibility of Chief Executive Mory Ejabat. Ascend warned late Monday that earnings for the quarter ending today will be 18 cents to 20 cents a share, while analysts were expecting 31 cents, the average estimate of 30 surveyed by IBES International Inc. Profit was 29 cents in the year-earlier quarter.