Shares of Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), the No. 3 PC maker, kept falling Thursday, down another 4 percent and setting a new 52-week low of $11.22. They closed at $11.24, down 44 cents.The company reported poor second-quarter results and issued a forecast for lower sales ahead. That was followed by a report that PC sales by Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) fell 10 percent in its third quarter.

The rout lowered the market capitalization of Dell to only $19.6 billion, down about $5.5 billion from a year ago.

The Round Rock, Tex., PC and services provider reported that its second-quarter net income dropped to only $732 million, or 50 cents per share, on an 8 percent revenue fall, to $14.5 billion. On an investor call Tuesday, Chairman Michael Dell and CFO Brian Gladden said the second half of the fiscal year will be challenging, because businesses are taking "a wait and see approach" to ordering PCs and tablets.

Dell plans to introduce a tablet based on the RT OS from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company, which will use chips from Arm Holdings (Nasdaq: ARMH) of the UK, which are used to run the iPad from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the world's most valuable technology company. Most Dell products are based on chips from either Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) or Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), the two top suppliers.

Separately, shares of Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ), the top PC maker, fell more than 8 percent Thursday. They closed down $1.57 at $17.64, only a quarter above their yearly low. The rout was the worst for HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., in the past year.

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